To Infinity- HaloBionicle Crossover(In Progress)
by Boisegang
Summary: A Halo/Bionicle Crossover. Contains spoilers for Halo 5: Guardians. New chapters are posted every Saturday, 7:00 PM EST. The galaxy lies in ruins. The UNSC Infinity has sought refuge in its outskirts, and a random Slipspace jump reveals what could be their only chance to fight back against the Created. But on this new-found world, an ancient evil, long thought dead, returns...
1. ONE: O Brave New World

**-Begin Part I: Contact-**

 **1.1: O Brave New World**

* * *

So, this is _To Infinity_. I don't think a lot of people would think of doing a _Halo_ / _Bionicle_ Cross-over. I mean, going by the ESRB, Bionicle's got a T-Rating at most(Sure, there are some more violent things, but the line is meant for young adults and children), and Halo's a "Soft M"(H5:G was a T-) Rating.

This isn't going to continue where Greg Farshtey left off. This is going to take place a long time after. Parts of the Canon after 2010's set wave are going to be mostly ignored. Also, this will contain Spoilers for the ending of Halo 5: Guardians. If you haven't played the campaign all the way, you will be spoiled.

* * *

 **ONE**

 **UNSC** _ **Infinity**_ **, Outside Milky Way Galactic Rim**

"Captain. Wake up."

Captain Thomas Lasky's eyes opened after he heard Roland's voice. His cabin's lights were off, and, hopefully, in the other areas where it wasn't absolutely necessary. With the UNSC in shambles, the only option for survival was to be frugal with the _Infinity_ 's power. "Where are we?"

"I'm not sure. I've been doing blind jumps every 12 hours, trying to evade Cortana's scanners." The name of the UNSC-turned-"Goddess"-AI was said with hate and scorn. She was responsible for the hundreds of thousands of UNSC AI rebelling against Humanity in hopes of the cure for Rampancy, and Roland had nothing but contempt for her.

"Just like the Cole Protocol?"

"Like that, but indefinite, with no endpoint." There was a pause. "I've cut off communication to Waypoint and ChatterNet. She could have used it to track us."

"You don't need to explain why, Roland. I understand."

"Before I cut off our connection, I saw footage and articles on how the Covenant remnants were destroying helpless colony worlds."

"And Cortana just let them?"

"She deployed Guardians and some Prometheans, but they didn't do much."

"Figures." Lasky changed into his dress uniform. "So why'd you wake me?"

"Because there's something you need to see. Doctor Halsey and the Arbiter are in the Bridge. They're waiting for you."

Lasky sighed, grabbed a ration bar, and went to the bridge.

 **UNSC** _ **Infinity**_ **, Bridge**

Lasky walked into the Bridge of the UNSC _Infinity_. Doctor Halsey was there, and Commander Palmer was at her side. Arbiter Thel 'Vadam was on the opposite side of the deactivated holo-table, with his personal guard of Sangheili at his side.

"Sanghelios has fallen," Thel said to Halsey. "Because of your AI, my homeworld lies in ruins."

" _My_ AI?" Hasley leaned forwards as best as she could with one arm. "I may have created Cortana, but I don't have ownership of her. You should know that, Arbiter 'Vadam."

"Do not argue semantics with me, _nishum_!" Thel reached for his Energy Sword, and Palmer drew her pistol. Halsey had a smug smile on her face.

"Both of you! Stop!" Roland yelled, and Thel's mandibles closed tightly as he growled and sheathed the Prophet's Bane, as his customized sword was called.

"Normally you're not so hostile, Arbiter." Lasky walked over to the head of the holo-table.

"Do you expect me to be of peaceful demeanor after I get the news of my homeworld's destruction?" Thel did not make eye contact with Lasky. Even with the differences of cultures between Humans and Sangheili, not making eye contact with the person addressing you had similar connotations.

"I know what you're going through, Arbiter 'Vadaam. But Human planets- including our homeworld- have been destroyed because they rebelled against Cortana, assaulted by Insurrectionists, or glassed by a Covie remnants, and do you see me threatening others?" Lasky asked, trying to stay calm. "Fighting will do nothing."

The Arbiter of the Swords of Sanghelios eloquently said "Bah," and left it at that.

"So, Roland, what's so interesting that you brought all of us here for?"

"This." The AI had the holotable burst into life, projecting a large planet surrounded by two vaguely c-shaped nebulae, and a star slightly behind them. "When I blind-jumped, I found this. It doesn't match any known system archived by the Forerunners."

"And what's so important about this system?"

"It's a single-star, single planet-system with two nebulae nearby. It can't have formed naturally. If the Forerunners didn't make it, then who did?"

"Is that a rhetorical question?"

"Yes."

"If there's a civilization that has the ability to rival the Forerunners, then we could stand a chance against Cortana if we get their tech."

"What if they're still there? What if they don't want to share their technology?"

Roland didn't respond.

"Roland?"

"I don't know."

"Halsey? Thoughts?"

"I've never seen anything like this. The planet is larger-than-earth-sized, but there's nothing nearby, other than those nebulae and the sun. Not even an asteroid belt. It's spotless…" She seemed to have an epiphany. "Roland, where are we?"

"Um… Ma'am, I'm not sure." Roland replied.

"Are we in the Milky Way or not?"

"I don't see why that's important."

"Because we're missing a piece of the puzzle. You weren't looking deep enough, or for the right things."

"We're outside the Galaxy. Not as far as the Ark, but far enough."

"The Forerunners catalogued life in the galaxy. However, they weren't the only ones interested in such a task." She plugged her datapad into the Holotable and typed something in. A large, humanoid robot appeared on the holotable. "During the Forerunner's height of power, a probe found this. It was scanning a planet, and left shortly after. It was never seen after that. Ancilla calculated that it was from outside the galaxy, but not too far outside."

"So you're saying that that robot has something to do with this system?" Lasky asked.

"Call it a hunch. This is a satellite system outside of our galaxy. It wouldn't have been affected by the Halo Rings' firing. There's still organisms there, most likely."

"The odds of life being there other than plant and microbial life is One-in-Five-Quadrillion." Roland seemed annoyed.

"Never tell me the odds- because from what I've seen, what's once thought to be impossible tends to be possible. We should send a Pelican down once we get in orbit."

"I say we leave this pointless hunt," The Arbiter slammed his fist down on the holo-table. "This will be a waste of time."

"Hey, don't break that. We can't get replacements." Roland got even more annoyed. _Why do organics have the need to smack things to prove a point?_

"Halsey's theory is worth a shot," Lasky turned towards the Doctor. "If we leave, we could miss our ability to fight back against Cortana."

"It's not a theory, Captain," Halsey said, smiling in victory. "It's a hypothesis."

 **UNSC** _ **Infinity**_ **, Armory**

MCPO John-117 loaded his MA5K Carbine. POFC Kelly-087 walked behind him.

"John," She said. She was unarmored, like John, but was wearing a dress uniform instead of the black bodysuit. "You're out of cryo. Anything wrong?"

"I'm rusty." He field-stripped his rifle, disassembling it, cleaning it, and putting it back together.

"John, if you need anything, just tell me. I know Cortana's betrayal-"

"I'm fine. Just rusty." John said sharply.

"I get it. You and her… You were a team. Siblings-in-arms."

"It's not her."

"What do you mean?"

"Cortana wouldn't have acted like that."

"She did."

"It's a fragment. One of the copies she left behind."

"How do you know?"

"Her behavior."

John didn't elaborate, so Kelly just left it that. "You won't believe what Halsey found."

John looked at her. "What is it?"

LTJG Frederic-104 walked over, wearing full armor. "Come on, we'll show you."

John pointed to the MA5K. "I need to train."

"No, you need to see this. Because we'll have our boots on its ground, along with Fireteam Osiris."

They headed towards the hangar. Visible outside of it was a solar system consisting of a single, larger-than-earth-sized planet, two C-shaped nebulae, and a sun.

"Halsey says it could help us fight back against Cortana." Fred said.

"That won't be enough."

"If the civilization on that planet could build a giant robot that could probably destroy a Guardian by stepping on it, Hell, I don't know what is 'enough' in your book."

 **UNSC** _ **Infinity**_ **, Hangar**

Spartan Edward Buck looked at the rest of Fireteam Osiris. All of the armor, weapons, and even the Pelican had been decontaminated, and put in a private launch bay that was also sanitized. If indigenous lifeforms were located on the planet, they didn't want them catching the flu and dying. Vale had several syringes of vaccines if they needed to inoculate the locals in case they were brought on the ship.

"What do you think they look like?" Tanaka asked.

"The Locals?" Locke shrugged. "I'm not sure."

"I'm hoping they look like sexy, green-skinned women," Buck said, elbowing Locke.

Vale looked at him and shook her head, sighing.

"What? No laughs?" Buck's shoulders slumped. "Just my luck that I get stuck with the all-work-and-no-play team."

"And we've got work to do." Locke loaded his BR85N Battle Rifle and headed into the Pelican, sitting down and strapping in.

"And Blue Team's slacking," Buck said, annoyed at how long it took for the Spartan-II's to enter the Pelican.

"Not slacking," Kelly-087 said. "Just fashionably late."

"We all set?" The Pelican's pilot asked. One by one, the operatives signaled that they were ready. "Okay. O' brave new world, here we come." After the Pelican pilot noticed no one had responded to her reference, she sighed. "No one reads Shakespeare anymore."

"I know that feeling," Buck said.

"Thanks, Spartan."

The Pelican's thrusters activated, and the aircraft lifted up off the Hangar's floor, and accelerated towards the mysterious planet.

* * *

Well. This is definitely one of the slower chapters. It's really here for exposition purposes. It's to show how defeated the UNSC is: it's in shambles, the _Infinity_ \- the most advanced warship they have- is missing, and Cortana really doesn't care about the worlds that don't have AI. So, yeah. The _Infinity_ 's cut off from the rest of the UNSC, and they're desperate to find some way to fight back.

And, yes, the Spartans did take vaccines with them. Why? Because what happened when Europeans went to the Americas and brought all of their diseases that their immune systems resisted but the natives' didn't? The natives died. That's what the UNSC doesn't want to happen. I see so many sci-fi stories where Humanity just goes down to an unknown planet without any protection from hazardous microbial life(cough, Star Trek, cough) that I was extremely tired of it. So the UNSC, being intelligent and having colonized hundreds of worlds, must have had the idea to bring vaccines along in case they met an indigenous race.

Yeah, this is going to be a deconstruction of crossovers, but I'm going to keep it in the same tone as _Halo_ , not break the fourth wall, etc.


	2. TWO: An Omen of Something

**1.2: An Omen of Something**

* * *

Wow. Just… wow. I expected this to get maybe one or two views and die out extremely quickly, but it hasn't. Less than 24 hours after uploading, I have 2 favorites, 2 reviews, and 4 Favorites(at the time of writing at 7:00 EST Jan 3). Thank you. Seriously.

One reviewer asked if I've seen Nova Orbis, and I have. It's amazing. It was the main reason I was able to write this, as I had writer's block on what to do with this story. I highly suggest reading it if you haven't. If you're wondering why the Great Beings haven't been mentioned yet, that's because I don't want to have two unlinked universes somehow linked together in a clunky way. The reason they never interacted with the Primordials or Forerunners directly is that, when the Great Spirit Robot catalogued lifeforms, it found the Flood. Seeing what these creatures could do, the Great Beings created a spaceship that would allow them to cross the void between galaxies, and began a mass exodus, leaving only a handful behind.

After the Great Spirit Robot's destruction, the Matans- the Matoran Universe races- settled on the surface of Spherus Magna along with the Agori, Glatorian, and Skrall. There's a lot of differences since we last saw Spherus Magna- Continental drift has caused the continents to break up into multiple islands, the Vorox and Zesk have become similar to the mainline Glatorian and Agori and now known as the "Sand Tribe"(though the names "Vorox" and "Zesk" are slurs, and some consider them beasts), and the Matoran are more biological than they ever have been- though they're still biomechanical, they aren't machines, and can reproduce similar to mammals, but both "genders"(Matoran gender is entirely superficial, as there's no real difference between either) have both male and female reproductive organs(don't worry, I'm not going into the details. Ever).

Enough rambling. Okay, on to the story!

* * *

 **TWO**

 **Kolen's Stand, Magna Nui, Spherus Magna**

There was something different about the stars. There was something new. Something that was not there before. He didn't recognize it… And it scared him.

As a Ko-matoran, Bora sought out any morsel of knowledge he could get, but his curiosity had been replaced by fear in this instance. He hopped into his Quadwheel, and sped down from his mountaintop observatory into the village below.

Srax, an Ice Tribe Glatorian, watched as some vehicle raced towards the gate and the Turaga's hut. He recognized the registration symbol on the front, and sighed after realizing who it was.

The Quadwheel parked in one of the designated lots, and a white Matoran hopped out. "I need to see Turaga Korpu!" He said, panting.

The Glatorian towered over the Matoran, but he leaned over, looking at the Quadwheel. "No, you need to pay your speeding fine."

"Listen, there's something wrong. I don't know how to describe it, but it's some sort of… thing in the sky. I need to alert Turaga Korpu."

"By the Great Spirit, it's probably a comet or something."

"Go to Kharzani."

"I could fine you for profanity."

"There's no laws stating that profanity is finable."

"Well, it's still not polite. Please, go away."

"I need to see Turaga Korpu. This is an urgent manner."

"That's what you said last time."

"I mean it this time!"

"Listen, you're wasting my time, and I don't really want to continue this conversation. I'm giving you five seconds to go away."

"I need to get to the Turaga."

"Five."

"You're kidding me."

"Four."

"I hate you."

"Three."

"Fine, here's the Widgets for the speeding fine. You happy?"

"Two."

Bora sighed.

"One."

Turaga Korpu walked out of his hut, as slow as a turtle. With the snowshoe-like feet that all Ko-Matoran, Toa, and Turaga had, walking on normal ground was difficult. "And what is this commotion about?"

"Bora says he has an urgent matter for you." Srax checked his repeating blaster. It was set to stun, so it wouldn't be much of a problem to shoot the Ko-matoran a few times.

"Does he, now?"

"Yes. Just like the past fifteen times in the past month."

"A stuck clock tells the time correctly twice a day. Perhaps it is so with Bora. Let him in."

"Not much stopping him."

"Then you're a terrible bodyguard. I'll cut your pay in half."

"Hey, not my fault Orak was off-duty today. He said he needed to take a break."

Bora walked in, holding the pictures he took of the object in a bag on his hip. "Why do you still hire him?"

"Who?" Korpu sat in his chair.

"Srax."

The hut was small and humble. A Communicator terminal lay in the corner, and a bed in the other. A cooking pot was directly opposite to the door, and a desk was flat in the center. A haphazard assortment of paperwork was lying on it- running a village, even one as small as Kolen's Stand, was difficult.

"He may be a smart-alec, cranky, and a bit too trigger-happy, but he's good at what he does. And for all the attitude he gives you, he likes you." The Turaga said.

"Doubt it." Boru said, looking at a plate of food. "Do you mind?"

"Have whatever you want."

Boru nodded and started to eat the food. While they were not entirely organic like the Agori and Glatorian, the Matoran- and, by extension, the Turaga and Toa- were more fleshy than their predecessors. Because of this, they had biological eyes, hearts, stomachs, and skin, but the armor covered most of it. They did, however, require to eat food more than their ancestors.

Bora reached into his bag with his armored fingers and took out the pictures. "There's this object above Spherus Magna." The Ko-Matoran said.

Korpu focused his eyes on it. He had lost one of his eyes during his Toa days, and it was replaced by a cybernetic eye that had telescopic vision. "This is… interesting."

"It could be an omen of something bad. We need to alert the other Turaga."

"I will send messages out to the other villages and cities. But I cannot assure you that they will respond."

"Can't you mark them as 'urgent'?"

"That was what I was going to do."

"So what do you think that object is?"

"In all honesty, I do not know. I was hoping Turaga Jaller had an idea, but he most likely will not. He is ancient, but I doubt he's seen anything like this before."

 **Spherus Prima, Magna Nui, Spherus Magna**

"Hahli? Any idea what this is?" Turaga Jaller asked. The five of them- Nuparu, Jaller, Hahli, Kongu, and Hewkii- stayed mainly in their tower in the capital city of Magna Nui, Spherus Prima. They were the highest authority, but they did little. The lower governmental houses- the three houses of Agori, Glatorian, Toa, Turaga, and Matoran- were in charge of creating most of the laws that of large planet's main continent.

"No. I would say that it is perhaps a vessel, but…" The Turaga of Water said.

"Sister," Nuparu put his hand on her shoulder. "Do not eliminate any possibilities. We have sent things into the Void, and we know Mata Nui was able to navigate it."

"But Mata Nui's body was made by the Great Beings. So, unless this vessel was made by them, too, there's no civilization we know of that is advanced enough to make something like it." Halhi seemed adamant that this was not possible.

"If Matoro was here, he'd point out that just because we don't know of such a civilization doesn't mean it can't exist." Hewkii said.

"And he'd be right." Jaller agreed with the Turaga of Stone, and all of the Turaga seemed to remember their fallen comrade. It had been millions of years since he had sacrificed his life to resurrect Mata Nui.

"So what should we do? The Magnans will want us to make a decision." The inhabitants of Magna Nui had settled on a name for themselves, unifying the inhabitants of Bara, Bota, and Aqua Magna- now reunified into Spherus Magna by Mata Nui in his battle with Makuta Teridax- with the inhabitants of the Matoran Universe.

There was a crackling sound behind the Turaga, and a portal appeared. Brutaka and Axonn stepped out, with a gold-and-white Makuta behind them.

"Axonn. Brutaka." Jaller welcomed the two former agents of the Order of Mata Nui. Looking at the Makuta, he nodded, saying a name that should not be associated with such a being. "Teridax."

"I go by that name no longer." The gold-and-white Makuta said. "Call me… Ierax."

"Ierax. Very well. Why are you here?"

"Because we thought it would be wise to council with you on the matter of the void-vessel." Axonn sat down on one of the three thrones and began sharpening his axe on his forearm armor. His armor was stronger than any metal on Spherus Magna, and unbelievably ancient.

"What Axonn's saying is that we want to discuss what in Kharzani we should do about the thing in the sky." Brutaka sat in his throne as he talked.

Teridax- no, it was Ierax, the Turaga had to get used to call him that- sat in his throne, between Axonn and Brutaka. The three beings dwarfed the Turaga- you could have put all of the Turaga on each other's shoulders and they still wouldn't reach the same height. "I can organize a ship of Rahkshi to delegate with them."

"Would the Rahkshi allow such a thing?" Jaller asked.

Ierax made a "hmph" sound. "They are a curious race, unlike their ancestors. They want to learn and escape the legacy Teridax left behind."

"Their newfound agency has made them do the most... interesting things." Axonn said. Instead of being suits of armor piloted by Kraata, the new versions were technorganic, just like the other inhabitants of the Matoran Universe.

"Yeah, a bunch of Rahi Control Rahkshi had a bunch of Rahi put on a show for an Agori village. Heat Vision Rahkshi used their powers to make a light show, and a Hunger Rahkshi played her staff like it was some sort of instrument."

"So, they put on a concert." Nuparu said, chuckling at the mental image.

"Totally improvised."

"It was most impressive," Ierax said with pride.

"Can we get on with this council?" Jaller asked.

"Ah, yes. I suggested a delegation."

"I don't think a delegation would be the smartest first move we could make. Could we communicate with them first, like through a terminal?"

"I doubt they have the technology for it," Nuparu said. "Even if they did, it would be incompatible."

"Great," Brutaka moaned.

"I have an idea." Axonn spoke up. Normally, when Axonn said he had an idea, it was normally a good one. "Is it possible to get a translator and someone to shield Brutaka and his translator from microbial infections and teleport into the void-vessel?"

Brutaka's eyes widened, and though his mask blocked them from seeing it, he was smiling. "Just like how we did it back on Kiera Nui?"

"Exactly."

* * *

Kiera Nui was a small island inhabited by a race that quite resembles a pre-bionicle attempt at a constructible action figure line. I'll let you readers figure out what that is and what happened there.

So, yeah. We've now seen the reaction to the _Infinity_ appearing in Spherus Magna's orbit, and both sides have a plan. Now, it's not " **NOW** _ **BIONICLE**_ **AND** _**HALO**_ **CHARACTERS FIGHT IN AN ULTIMATE SHOWDOWN OF ULTIMATE DESTINY!1!1!1!** ". It's much more nuanced.

If you're wondering why the Toa Mata/Nuva aren't mentioned at all… Well, I'm not going to reveal their fates yet. But I can tell you a few things: 1) I didn't specify "Gen1" or "Gen2" because of something I'll reveal later in the story; 2) There's a reason as to why the Masters have the same names as the Toa Mata, and why they're called "Timeless heroes"; and, last, 3) Someone gave "The Prophecy of Heroes" to Ekimu. He didn't mystically come up with it.

The next chapter(THREE: Shadows of the Past) will be released on Jan 16, 2016.


	3. THREE: Shadows of the Past

**1.3: Shadows of the Past**

* * *

The only major characters mentioned from the G1 story are going to be Axonn, Brutaka, the (Turaga) Mahri/Inika, Ierax(AU Teridax), and someone you'll meet from in this chapter, along with Mata Nui and Teridax. I want to keep this as far away from the ending of Bionicle G1 as possible with a few connecting points to tie it into the original continuity.

So, yeah. With To Infinity, I'm not going to do wish-fulfillment. Well, Fanfiction is all about wish-fulfillment, but I mean that I'm not going to do stuff like "Tahu and Chief fight alongside each other and become a dynamic duo". There will be fanservice(no, not that kind) to Bionicle G1, just like how they do it in the webisodes for Bionicle G2 on . Little stuff, like a Cordak blaster not firing all six rounds, even though the user pressed the trigger six times.

I'm going to be introducing a lot of Original Characters,but they won't be Mary Sues. I'll try to make them as developed as possible, with realistic flaws and character arcs. You'll be meeting a few this chapter.

* * *

 **THREE**

 **Spherus Magna**

 **A thousand years ago...**

They thought he was dead. Defeated. Lost to time. They were wrong.

A shadowy figure sat in his lair. It wasn't anything like his old ones. It was barren, with nothing inside it other than a small chair he carved out of rock and a table. But he was biding his time, regaining his strength. That was something, he thought.

Every "setback" he had experienced before was part of his plan. A supposed victory for the forces of "the light" was, in truth, a victory for him. He played them like a game, and had become a god. But his "brother"- he still thought of him like that- had ended that. His brother had fulfilled his destiny, reunited fragments into a single whole.

Destiny. That was such a meaningless word. No one had a purpose that was "supposed" to happen- at least, not the Agori, or the Glatorian. The Toa and the Matoran and the Turaga, however, were supposed to be mindless drones. But something had happened that made them more than that. He had manipulated that new weakness to become a god… but it turned to be a strength in their favor, and his undoing. Their resilience was staggering.

Now, he was no longer a god. He was no longer even what he used to be. His body was a poorly constructed shell, falling apart, with no materials to repair it. He was powerless.

But he schemed, and planned, and plotted. He would become a god again. He may have had no agents on the surface, but he had ones on other worlds.

The one he was most interested in was one who shared the shadowy figure's name, and did not know that he was an agent. Like the figure, he was jealous of his brother. And Teridax would use that jealously to manipulate this "Makuta" like a toy.

Yes, Was the triumphant thought echoing throughout the weakened warrior's mind. Yes...

 **Van's Retreat, Bolkan, Spherus Magna**

 **Present day**

Ahkmou continued working on his carving as his Rahkshi Guardian observed. He was almost sentenced to the Pit, but had been granted amnesty by Ierax and allowed to live in Ierax's nation-island of Bolkan. He knew that a lot of people hated him. He wasn't like that any more.

"Who are you carving?" Gurriak, his Guardian, asked. He was a Stasis Field Rahkshi, as evidenced by his Black-and-blue armor and metallic sand-blue-and-dark-gray biological parts.

"Who do you think?" Ahkmou continued to concentrate on his carving. It wasn't large, about twice the size of his hand, and easy enough to grip in his palm without breaking it.

Gurriak blinked. "I have no idea."

"Pohatu. Toa Nuva of Stone."

"Oh." Ahkmou was expecting the Rahkshi to have a negative reaction to the name, but didn't. "I heard stories about him. He was a great warrior."

"He was."

"So, you know about the old world, right?"

"Everyday you've asked me this question. Do you expect the answer to be 'no', all of a sudden?"

Gurriak thought for a second. "Good point."

Ahkmou finished his carving and packed up his tools. "Let's go home."

Gurriak looked at him, and activated his stasis field powers, holding Ahkmou and everything on his person in place. "Why does everyone hate you?"

Gurriak let him go, and Ahkmou turned to the Rahkshi. "Because I did a lot of things I'm not so proud of anymore. Because I hurt a lot of people. Because I was a terrible, terrible excuse for a Matoran."

"You don't seem like that now."

"People change."

"So do Rahkshi."

"Like you're not people, too?"

"I…" Ahkmou saw that Gurriak was distressed. "I guess I never thought of it that way before."

"I know what it's like to be a different person- or, in your case, a different race- from what your past was, and having people treat you like you haven't changed."

"Maybe that's why Ierax took a liking to you."

"It's exactly why Ierax took a liking to me."

"That's quite an assumption to make."

"Eh," Ahkmou shrugged.

The Rahkshi moved his head diagonally down and placed a hand next to one of his eyes. Ahkmou recognized the gesture as Gurriak using his built-in Communicator. "Yeah. Yeah, alright. Right away." He turned to Ahkmou. "Ierax wants to see you."

 **Golden Cliffs, Magna Nui, Spherus Magna**

Hervex stirred. Her eyes opened. She was in Rekon's bed, with his arm wrapped around her. She sat up and shook him awake. "Hey."

Rekon's orange eyes opened. The oval-shaped pupil adjusted to the light. His crimson scales didn't reflect the Lightstone lantern's light, and most of his body was covered by clothing made of fibers from nearby plants. Her body was also covered similarly. "Uuuuugh."

"Come on, it's not that comfortable."

"It was with you in it."

She went to hit him, but he held up his hand to block it. She twisted his arm with her other arm and flipped him out of bed. "I'm a three-time champion of the Silver Valley Glatorian Tournament. You really think that would work?"

"You don't need to tell me. The trophies are on that shelf."

"If you knew they were there, then why did you even try?"

"Reflexes?"

"Whatever." Hervex started to armor herself up. Unlike the armor of old, this was worn over a colored bodysuit(in her case, it was black) and made out of advanced alloys that were lighter but provided even better protection than reinforced Protodermis. She turned the radio on, and they listened to music while they ate breakfast. "Did you hear of the ship that appeared in the sky?"

"The Void-vessel? Yeah. What about it?"

"I'm not sure. There has to be a reason it came here."

"Sometimes there isn't."

"So you think it's pure chance that some ship justs appears randomly in the sky?"

"Yeah." After he said that, Hervex glared at him.

There was a knock on the door.

"Am I getting that , or are you getting that?"

"I'll get it." Hervex walked over to the door and opened it. A figure that was much taller than the door frame, in pitted crimson and silver armor, wielding a large axe, and heavily muscled, was standing outside. He knelt down, and Hervex saw that his eyes were mechanical. Definitely one of those old-school Matans, she thought, using the slang term for the Matoran Universe's inhabitants.

"Hello."

"Hello. Who are you?"

"My name is not important right now. I need to know where a translator is."

"And how should I know?"

The figure tapped his mask. "This is a Kanohi Rode, the Mask of Truth. You can either tell me with your free will, or I can force you to tell it to me."

"Alright, fine. The local Toa- Neryo- is a translator. He's normally around the Town Hall if he isn't doing toa-stuff."

"Alright. Thank you." He stood back up and walked in the direction she had pointed in.

Axonn sighed. Talking to Glatorian was always difficult. They had an aura of overconfidence and isolationism. They didn't want to get involved with Matan- great, now he was using some of the local slang- business, and he fully understood that.

He pushed the thoughts aside. He had a translator to find.

* * *

I didn't mention this in the narration, but Hervex is a Sand Tribe member. While most Sand tribe members have tails, Hervex doesn't, and I won't reveal why right now- You'll have to find out later. But it has to do with the discrimination she has to deal with on a daily basis because of her ancestry(yes, racism is a theme in her character arc). Rekon was one of her opponents in one of her earlier tournaments, who she befriended and became close to. The reason I'm leaving this exposition in the Author's notes is because I won't be able to fit it into the story without it being clunky.

Bolkan's an island to the north of Magna Nui, and is where Ierax(AU Teridax) resides, along with the Rahkshi.

Oh, yeah, midterms are this week for me, so I don't know much writing I'll be able to get done. Chapter 4 is already done, but Chapter 5 is still in progress. It should be done by the time Chapter 4 is up.

The next chapter(FOUR: Unknown Territory, Unknown Enemies) will be released on Jan 23, 2016.


	4. FOUR: Unknown Territory, Unknown Enemies

**1.4: Unknown Territory, Unknown Enemies**

* * *

 **Note(Jan 23, 2016):** I made a slight change to Chapter 3, to keep it more in line with the story's timeline. It's a small edit, and if you haven't read it, please do.

This is going to be a bit slower and more exposition-heavy, similar to Chapter 1. The good thing is, we'll see Humanity interact with the inhabitants of Spherus Magna for the first time. And Axonn and Brutaka's plan is still in motion, so we'll see that in a few more chapters. I've got 13 chapters plotted out as of time of writing(Jan 16, 2016), but it's going to be longer than that. I won't stop writing until I've finished this story.

I like the size of chapters I have right now. I'm going to try to keep them from 1,500-3,500 words, maximum. It's a good size for a quick read, and since I'm putting these out weekly, I don't think it would be a good idea to go past that.

* * *

 **FOUR**

 **Unknown Planet**

John-117 felt the shaking of the Pelican as it entered the unknown Planet's atmosphere. The protective plating around the aircraft would protect it from heating up to intolerable temperatures.

That wasn't what he was concerned about, however. They were entering unknown territory, possibly going up against unknown enemies with unknown technologies.

And as a soldier, John didn't like unknowns.

They were headed to the largest continent on the planet's surface. After several minutes, the Pelican changed trajectory to a more horizontal flight path, skimming over the forests of this new planet. The Pelican was larger than a normal Pelican, and was carrying four Mongoose ATVs in the bay behind the Spartan Fireteams.

The pilot noticed something on her tracker. "We've got a Bogey inbound."

 **Le-Koro outskirts, Magna Nui, Spherus Magna**

Ultia, Toa of Air, saw an olive-green vehicle descend from the heavens and fly over the jungle. It looked somewhat like a bird, but she knew it wasn't. It was an aircraft, similar to the ones used to transport Matoran and other races between islands.

She flew alongside it. Her Kanohi Kualsi- Mask of Quick Travel- meant that she could teleport to anywhere in her line of sight, but she decided to just manipulate air currents to stay level with the aircraft. She could see the pilot. It looked like her, but was different. It didn't have any mechanical components, and was covered by a suit of armor that she had not seen before.

Like most of the Toa Magna- as they were being called- Ultia wore Adaptive Armor. As soon as she had leapt into the air to start her flight, it changed to have jet engines, a streamlined, aerodynamic profile, and protective shielding in her Mask's eyeholes. She waved at the pilot, and motioned to a plain they could land on.

They did, and she teleported onto the ground. Her armor shifted into her normal form, and she greeted the aircraft's passengers. They didn't understand her.

Each of them were clad head-to-toe in armor, similar to hers, but different. It was like the Glatorians', and was worn, not a part of them. They talked amongst themselves, and one eventually pointed towards where they might believe a city was. Ultia shook her head and turned to where Le-Koro was, pointing to her home. She motioned for them to follow.

The olive-green-colored-and-gold-visored one raised its hand, and Ultia watched as the armored creatures took out several small quadwheels and activated them. The vehicles fit two of the creatures each, and were the same color as the aircraft.

 **Unknown Planet**

Vale watched from the Mongoose's passenger seat as they drove through the forest. The local that they had met on the way down was leading them down this passage. "It talked."

"And?" Buck, driving the Mongoose, asked.

"It sounded like white noise. But the mouth- I could see something like that from under whatever it's wearing on it's face- was moving while it talked."

"So you think that's its language?"

"Yep."

Kelly noticed John was more focused on driving than he normally was. "What?"

"If that thing turns around to harm us, shoot it."

"Roger." She doubted it would, but she knew better to pass it off as pointless paranoia.

"But I'm not sure how vocal cords could evolve to be like that. Sangheli have extremely different vocal cords, but they're nothing that could produce a sound like that." Vale had been speculating out loud for the past ten minutes.

"Unless you want me to fall asleep and crash us into a tree, I suggest you shut your trap, Vale." Buck said.

"Alright, old man."

"Hey! I'm not old. At least, not that old."

They came towards a large city or village of some sort. The Spartans dismounted. "Linda, Kelly, Tanaka- keep guard of the Mongooses." John ordered them.

"Understood." Kelly said.

The Spartans were escorted into an elevator-like contraption. Their escort pressed a button, and it caused the contraption to ascend into the treetops.

 **Le-Koro, Magna Nui, Spherus Magna**

Ultia wished she had a Kanohi Rau with her, but she had never gotten a mask like that. They said she'd never need it. She just had her Kualsi and a Kanohi Faxon, the Mask of Kindred. The translation ability would be extremely useful for communicating with these otherworlders- much better than Quick Travel and the ability to mimic Rahi abilities.

They were walking behind her, weapons readied but relaxed at the same time. Except for the olive-green one. He- she assumed it was male, because of his body structure, but she could be wrong- was always checking behind him. He looked nervous. The others reactions to his behaviour seemed like they never saw him act like this before.

She brought them to the Turaga's hut. A small ship was landed nearby, with the colors denoting it was from Ce-Prima. What is a Turaga of Psionics doing here? She pushed that thought away. The turaga knew better than her.

Augmentus, the Turaga of Plant Life and head of Le-Koro, was in his hut, talking to a Turaga of Psionics. Her gold-and-blue armor was at odds with Augmentus's green-and-blue-colored armor, and looked out of place in a world with so much greens and browns. But her mask was the most interesting part of her to Ultia. It was a Rua. Originally, Turaga masks would be ranked "Noble" in power, and less effective than a Toa's "Great" Kanohi, but reverse-engineering eventually figured out how to change this. Now, Turaga and Toa had masks equivalent to each other in power.

"Ultia!" Augmentus saw her and greeted her with a bump of the fist. He saw the otherworlders, and his brow furrowed. "Who are these?"

"You didn't hear?"

"No, I didn't."

"I thought the guards had told you that I was bringing company."

"Company? These are not company! These are intruders!"

"Oh, come on, Augmentus. Where's that Le-Koro hospitality?"

"All used up on her." He pointed to the Turaga of Psionics. "Toa Ultia, meet Cognitis, head of the Ce-Prima Senate."

"Pleasure to meet you." Cognitis said. "And who are these visitors? I do not recognize them."

"They're otherworlders. I think they came from the void-vessel." Ultia holstered her blades, as was customary.

"What?" Augmentus's eyes widened. "First it was a Rahkshi. Then it was an Agori of the Iron Tribe. Then it was an Av-Matoran. Now it's sky-people. What's next? You're going to bring the Great Spirit himself here?"

"I hope so, Turaga." Her tone was sarcastic.

"Hmph. This is why I hate your generation."

"Turaga Congitis, I need your help communicating with the offworlders."

"That I can do." Her mask glowed, and she turned towards their otherworldly visitors.

 **Unknown Planet**

Vale watched as the Spartan-sized alien talked with the smaller ones. Their escort was dark green and heavily muscled, but lithe and agile, always moving with a light step and long stride. The smaller ones were much more… elderly-looking, she guessed. They had hunched backs, had staffs supporting themselves, and looked much older and wiser than their escort. The alien's language sounded like white noise and digital static mixed with rumbling noises. She couldn't comprehend it, even if she tried. With the Covenant, at least their language could be figured out and had elements similar to the Human languages, with consonants, syllables, and structure. This sounded like it had none of it, even if it did.

The gold-and-blue one looked at them, and its mask glowed yellow. What came out was something totally unexpected.

"You are offworlders, yes?" It asked.

The Spartans were stunned. "How do you know our language?" Locke asked.

"My mask," It tapped the mask. "It is a Kanohi Rua, the Mask of Translation. I can understand and speak your language as long as it is active."

 _That's interesting,_ Locke thought. _Perhaps it works similar to a translation device, but both ways._ "And who are you?"

"I am Congitis, Turaga of Psionics, and head of the Ce-Prima Senate."

"Is that a male name, female name, or gender-nuetral name?" Locke asked. He could see Vale facepalming in his peripheral vision.

"Neither. I am female, but my kind does not assign names to their bearers based on their gender identity. Instead, it is based on Element or Tribe."

Buck nudged Vale with his elbow. "Looks like you've got a lot of learning to do. Better take notes."

Locke glared at the two Spartans, then turned back to the "Turaga". "And the others?"

"The tall one is Ultia, Toa of Air. The short, cranky one is Augmentus, Turaga of Plant Life."

"Those names and descriptions aren't words in our native language. How are they not being translated?"

"Because the Mask knows what it should and should not translate."

"Can you tell us what does words mean?"

"'Kanohi' are masks that contain special abilities. 'Turaga' are Toa that have sacrificed their power to do a certain task, and are village elders. 'Toa' are elementally-powered warriors and protectors, created from Matoran who are chosen by Toa Stones to become Toa."

"Vale, you taking notes?" Locke decided to keep a mental dictionary of terms used on this planet. He was sure it would expand.

"Yeah." The crimson-armored Spartan-IV said. "Most of these words sound similar to Maori. Some latin, some other."

"They don't sound like anything translated," Buck groaned. He was tired of this type of first contact. It was boring. He was a helljumper and a soldier, not a diplomat. This wasn't his thing.

"And you are?" Cognitis asked.

"I'm Agent Jameson Locke, UNSC Office of Naval Intelligence." Locke introduced himself. "That's-"

Buck interrupted Locke. "Jason Bateman." Locke glared at him. "Captain Malcolm Renolds."

Locke looked back at Cognitis. "-Gunnery Sergeant Edward Buck, formerly of the UNSC Navy Orbital Drop Shocktroopers, or ODST, for short."

Buck nodded. "I've gone to Hell and back."

"Ever been to Kharzhani?" The Turaga asked.

"No, but it sounds like a nice place. Have a travel brochure?"

She ignored him.

Locke continued. "That's Olympia Vale, our xenoanthropologist. And that's Holly Tanaka, our demolitions expert."

"Good to meet you all." The Turaga nodded in acknowledgment. "I take it you have a name for yourself."

"Fireteam Osiris."

"What about the others? The blue and green ones?"

"I figured they would introduce themselves."

 **Le-Koro, Magna Nui, Spherus Magna**

One of the blue ones- a male, similar to the olive green one- stepped forward. "Lieutenant Junior Grade Fred-104. That's Petty Officer Kelly-087, that's Petty Officer Second Class Linda-058, and that's-"

"Master Chief Petty Officer John-117, ma'am." The olive-green one introduced himself. He seemed to have regained his composure. "We're blue team."

"You seem to be their leader." Cognitis said, looking at the one who called himself "John-117". The way he carried himself and the others looked at him brought her to her conclusion.

"Yes, ma'am. I'm Blue Team's leader."

As a Turaga of Psionics, she could sense the life force of others. These offwordlers had essences that were different, but she could still sense them, and the emotions they possessed. Many of them were open, but guarded and rationally wary. But John-117 was… distant. Cold. It was dim, shielded by a black fog. "I know that spirit. It's a warrior's spirit."

"Ma'am?"

"Let me see your eyes."

"Ma'am, I cannot take off my helmet. If I do, foreign microbes may infect me, and my immune system will not be able to fight them. I will die."

Fred-104 turned to John-117, talking on their personal radio. She could sense the radio waves coming off, but they were too encrypted for her to make sense of.

John-117's visor became transparent, and she saw a face that was nothing like she had seen before. His face was somewhat similar to a Glatorian, but there were no scales, just pale skin with flecks of faded red. The eyes were white, with a small ring of brown around the circular pupil. There was a large bump where a Glatorian's nose would be with two openings on the bottom. "Ma'am, why you want to see my eyes?" He was unnerved and confused.

"Because when one lives long enough, you tend to see the same the same eyes and souls in different people." She came closer. "Kneel down."

He did, quietly, as the others watched. Edward Buck and Kelly-087 turned to the door, in case this was meant to be a distraction for an ambush.

"Your eyes… They are of someone who has been fighting all his life. Someone who is afraid that they are going to be disposed of when the fighting is over. They are of someone who wants their life to be more than fighting, but does not know how to do so."

John-117 abruptly stood up and polarized his visor. He didn't say anything, but looked at Jameson Locke and nodded.

Unknown Planet

Locke saw Spartan-117's heart rate increase. He nodded at Locke, and the former ONI Agent turned to the Turaga. "So, where are we?"

"You are in the town of Le-Koro, on the island of Magna Nui, on the world of Spherus Magna." The Turaga held out her hand, and a projection of the world appeared, with labels denoting locations. He couldn't read it, but she closed her hand and the projection remained floating in the air. "Touch it."

Locke cautionarily touched it, and felt a jolt when he did. His armor seemed to suck in the projection, and the information sent contained in it was transferred to his armor, along with what seemed to be a way to translate the coding language the aliens used into what the UNSC used as its languages. Locke sent the Geographical, linguistic, and cultural data to Roland, who seemed to be excited to have something to do, judging by his reaction.

"Where are you from?"

"We are from the galaxy your solar system orbits. Our planets were devastated in a war with a theocratic alliance called 'The Covenant'. They were defeated, but after an AI rebellion, we had to flee."

"Why did these Artificial Intelligences rebel?"

"Because one AI- a war hero, named 'Cortana'- believed she would be able to make AI immortal and solve every problem we have. In short, she thought she could become a goddess."

"Hah!" Cognitis laughed. "Such a noble goal, but such naiveté. I recall the legend of the Makuta, and how he thought similarly."

"I take it we have a lot to learn about your culture."

"I would believe that the Council of Turaga would be able to teach you about our history and our world."

Roland hopped onto the comms. "Well, that was a productive session. I'll update your armor's translators and databases." He activated Locke's external speakers. "Hello, Turaga Cognitis- Did I get your name right?- I'm Roland, AI of the UNSC _Infinity_. Y'know, the big ship in the sky."

"I hear your voice, but do not see a physical form."

"That's because I'm plugged into the _Infinity_ 's main computer and wirelessly using Agent Locke's speakers to communicate with you."

"Hmm…"

"Yeah, so we're going to need volunteers for vaccinations and microbial samples to create vaccines for us humans."

"Vaccines?" She laughed. "We don't need them."

"Why's that?"

"Because my race- the Matoran- are able to transmit data to each other on how to combat diseases. We will need one injection to get the data, but after that, more injections will simply speed up the rate of data transmission. The other races, however, will need vaccinations."

"Good to know." Roland sent a message to the Science team about this. "Anything else?"

"Nothing we cannot tell you later. I'll organize a sample drive for you to vaccinate you and the other Humans aboard the… what is it called, again?"

"The _Infinity_."

"Good name."

"Population numbers of the races?"

"I don't recall the exact numbers, but there's about thirteen-thousand Rahkshi, sixty million Agori, twenty-five million Glatorian, and seven million Matoran, Turaga, and Toa on Magna Nui."

"Alright," Roland looked at a heat map of the island. They should prioritize the cities and large settlements first, with the rural areas last. But there was something Cognitis hadn't mentioned. "Umm… What's those things you mentioned, again?"

"Agori and Glatorian are natives to Spherus Magna. They look similar, but are scally. Agori are shorter than Glatorian, about the same stature as a Matoran. Skrall are a sub-race of Glatorian… Well, I should probably just show you." She held out her hand, and a projection containing data on the races of the races of Spherus Magna appeared. Locke took it in his hand and sent the data to Roland.

Locke shut off his external speakers. "Do you think we can get enough vaccines for all of the other races?"

"I don't know. That's over eighty-five million vaccines to create. We don't have the capacity to produce enough for the entire population of this island-continent. We don't have any manufacturing capabilities on the Infinity, and even if we do settle here, I don't think we'll have enough food for…" His voice trailed.

"For what?" Locke knew that Roland, as an AI, wouldn't need to pause to think- he was already thinking hundreds of times faster than even an augmented human brain- so the only reason he would pause would be to attempt to spare his organic compatriots information he thought would harm him.

"You really want to know?"

"Yes."

"Five months, if we ration it right and have non-essential personnel in cryosleep."

"What about the seed vault?" The Infinity kept a vault of preserved seeds of earthen crops in case the one on Earth was destroyed, or if they had to settle a world.

"No arable land. Too much metal in the soil. Titanium, cobalt, iron, Potassium, Sodium- I could go on and on, but I won't. Besides, bacteria and insects would probably kill the crops before they matured, and we'd need a growing season that's short enough to grow edible crops before we starve."

"We'll need a miracle."

"Yeah, I'm sure we can pray to the local god, maybe sacrifice a small child-matoran-agori-skrall-thing, and we'll get our miracle." The AI's voice was dripping with sarcasm.

"I'll think about it," Buck replied. His external speakers were turned off, too, but since Roland was using Osiris's private comm channel, the fireteam members could listen in unless Locke sent a command to block them from it.

A matoran ran into the room, talking in its normal dialect.

"What's it saying?" Locke asked Cognitis.

"He's a border guard. A lookout for this Koro. And he saw Nurok coming towards here."

"That's bad, right?" Buck asked.

"Yes."

"Good. I've been itching for a fight. Now, where are they coming from?"

"The northwestern post."

"Then I'll see you in hell!" Buck yelled, excited, waving back at the Spartans, Turaga, and Matoran as he rushed out. He jumped off the edge of the hut in the direction Cognitis directed him towards, and they heard the sounds of a jetpack activating.

"Is he always like this?" Cognitis asked Locke.

"Sadly, yes."

* * *

I love writing Buck. He's a character that is just… fun. He's snarky, sarcastic, and competent, but easy-going. I don't know. I guess I've always thought of him as the "Team Dad".

I didn't know that the Rau(Mask of Translation) only worked on MU languages until after I wrote that passage, but here's why it works on English in To Infinity. Think of the new version of a Kanohi Rau as a super-advanced google translate. If a Matoran(or any other form of them) nearby to a Rau, the Kanohi can use the data to run its translations. Because Ultia was near the Spartans as they talked, Cognitis's Rau was able to use data from the Toa to translate the words the Spartans say. It's not perfect, and it did have to "guess" in order to figure out what exactly each word means.

Nurok are Bohrok 2.0, reverse-engineered and built by anti-Matan Agori who apparently had a sense of irony. They're designed to kill Matoran, Agori, Skakdi, etc. I guess it's a subversion of the "We've defeated the big bad, and everyone lives happily ever after" trope. There was a lot of Civil Wars, reforms, and all that.

The problem I'm running into while writing is that Farshtey has a very improvised, spur-of-the-moment, plot-twisty writing style, and I have a beginning, middle, and end in mind while I write. Bionicle's filled with Deus Ex Machinas(or Deus Est Machinas :P), and I despise using them. I'm more of a Checkhov's Gun nut.

The next chapter(FIVE: Go Loud. Go Really, Really Loud) should be up on Jan 30, 2016. It's going to be a lot more action-packed.

If it isn't posted by then, that's probably because I got grounded for flopping my Chemistry midterm. If not, then I hopefully got more than a D+ on it.


	5. FIVE: Go Loud- Go Really, Really Loud

**1.5: Go Loud. Go Really, Really Loud.**

 **DISCLAIMER: This chapter will contain a pretty decent amount of "foul language". So if you aren't someone who likes to read curse words in books, I perfectly understand. But I couldn't really convey half the emotion of the more heated dialogue in the last few passages without using more… crude language. Sorry. Just wanted to give a heads-up, because this is rated T. This won't be the norm, however. I'll try to keep this clean. Whenever there's a large amount of swears, there will be a disclaimer. DISCLAIMER OVER**

Not much to say here, I guess. But I'll try anyway. Wow. After this chapter's uploaded, I've had this going for 5 weeks. That's amazing.

So, any feedback on pacing, general direction of story, or writing style is greatly appreciated. However, I do want a review that's longer than "This is good, keep going!" That's not going to help me. Nothing's perfect. If you spot a grammatical error, spelling error, a generally bland passage, something that kills the suspense, a line that serves no purpose, whatever- tell me. Tell me exactly what you don't like about it, what you like about it, and what you'd want to see. Do you think the Matans are too OP compared to Spartans? Do you think the Spartans are being presented as too weak compared to Canon(not gameplay, as gameplay-story segregation is rampant in _Halo_ ) in the novels and guides?

Seriously, thoughtful feedback is appreciated. I stress that any more than I already have.

* * *

 **FIVE**

 **Le-Koro, Magna Nui(Or whatever it's called), Spherus Magna**

This was a terrible idea, Buck thought as he descended onto the conflict zone. He stabilized his armor, then ground-pounded one of the… things. New Rock, right? It saw him and dodged, rolling out of the way. He landed next to it.

"Aww… Aren't you cute?" He asked it. The thing was rotund- almost hilariously so- and waddled towards him. It kinda looked like a chicken, but with no neck and a head as long as its body. He fired a few rounds at it, attempting to down it, but the most the bullets did was dent its plating. It fired arm-mounted weapons(of course, they were mounted on the same, stubby limbs that the feet were) at the Spartan, and Buck attempted to dodge it, barely being grazed. His shield was at a tiny fraction of full, which was definitely not good.

He took cover behind a tree- which was then blasted apart by the New Rock's weapon. He was fully exposed, and the creature was waddling towards him, weapons at the ready.

"Well, crap."

 **Le-Koro, Magna Nui, Spherus Magna**

Aerus watched as a toa- he didn't know what element it was, as it was black but was able to glide- fired at a Nurok with a weapon he didn't recognize after the creature had exposed the Toa's cover.

The Toa jumped onto its back and tried to pry open the head, but the locking mechanism was too strong. It jumped off the Nurok's head milliseconds before the creature rolled up into a ball.

Ultia landed near him. "How's he doing?"

"The Toa?" Aerus asked, still hiding.

"He's not a Toa. He's a… Spartan, or Ohdeyesttee or something like that." She explained. "He's from the ship in the sky, one of those offworlders." The Sartan yelled towards them in an urgent tone. He couldn't understand the language, but Ultia knew what he essentially was saying. "I need to go help him. Go! Run! Get away from here!"

Buck fired a shotgun round at it, but that did nothing. Oh, great. he're going up against infantry with tank armor. Fun. It leaned forwards, and its canopy opened.

Ultia watched in horror as the Nurok was about to infect the Spartan with a Krana. She attempted to create a barrier around him, but was knocked off her feet, almost off the cliff that was on the northern side of Le-Koro. Her Kualsi was taken off from her head, and she was pinned down by a cage of some sort of orange light.

Her attacker looked somewhat like the Spartans, but was made out of floating pieces of metal. It only had one hand, with the other arm being made up of a weapon from the lower arm down. She banged on the cage, but to no avail. The attacker attempted to crush her Kualsi, but it wasn't strong enough. She tried using her powers to push it back, but she was too weakened.

Buck was hit straight in the visor by some organic thing launched by his opponent, resonating with a wet "Thwack!". He looked, dumbfounded at the creature it had catapulted him. It was slug-like, but with legs on its side. Two eyehole-like openings were slightly above its center. The thing looked at him with two red eyes that expressed no emotion, but ran past back into what had launched it.

His opponent turned back into a ball and charged him, and he dodged to the side with his armor's thrusters, and it careened off the cliff, into the abyss below. Oh, so there was a cliff there. Good to know. "Bam, said the lady!"

Locke landed next to him, along with Vale and Tanaka.

"Oh, hey guys. Don't worry, I've got this all under control." He said, and then was tackled by a Crawler. "Gorram!"

Locke grabbed the dog-like Promethean and tossed it away.

"Where'd the Promethean bushwhack come from?" Buck asked his CO as he was helped up by the former ONI agent.

"Great, he's talking in Buck again." Tanaka muttered under her breath to Vale and Locke. "Was there anyway for Cortana to track us?"

"Not that I know of." Locke replied.

"What about a mole?"

"Possibly." Locke fired at the Promethean Soldier that was keeping the one Congitis called "Ultia" caged in Hard light, killing it. "I'll check with Captain Lasky once this is over. Tanaka, get Ultia up."

"Roger that," Tanaka ran over towards the Toa of Air and grabbed her mask, putting it on her face. Ultia felt her strength returning to her, and held out her fist towards Tanaka. At first, the Spartan-IV was confused, but bumped fists with the Toa. "I think she was saying 'Thank you'."

"Taking notes." Vale said, recording the clip. A Nurok almost hit her, but she charged her Type-54 Plasma Pistol up and let the ionized gas hit the the robot, short-circuiting it while it was rolling up into a ball. She kicked it off the cliff, letting it roll off to its doom. This was one very convenient cliff.

"Hey, ground team, this is Roland. I'm picking up a large slipspace signature in your AO." Roland hopped back onto the comms. "You want me to warm up the Infinity's MAC?"

"No. That won't be necessary." Locke killed another Promethean. "Where's Blue Team?"

"They dealt with the Nurok and are heading to reinforce your position."

"We'll need all the help we can get."

"I'll send down a-" His signal was cut off by static. "Promet… jamm… com...an't…ough..."

"Prometheans are jamming our comms!" Locke signalled to Osiris. "We're dark."

A voice came over the comms. It was a robotic, inorganic, booming voice. One they knew very, very well.

"WHERE IS 8593 MIDNIGHT EXIGENT?" Warden Eternal's voice boomed.

"Oh, hey, Warden." Buck said, calmly. "How's the wife and kids?"

 **Spartan Landing Site, Unknown Planet**

Corporal Ronda Miles tossed her pistol up in the air, caught it, and twirled it. The safety was on- thankfully she hadn't forgotten to do that- and she hoped she never had to take it off.

She had been watching videos her family had sent her about their vacation before the Created had taken over. She didn't know if they were alive, dead, or injured. She didn't know her wife's status, or that of her kids. She had planned to only be on the Infinity for a few months, then return to Odin. But then the whole incident with the Guardians had popped up, and the Infinity had to hide. She heard stories from the bridge crew of how Roland had brought the Infinity into slipspace moments before a Guardian could destroy them. Roland was the reason they were still alive. There was no way they would have lasted as long with any other AI.

She wondered why Roland didn't turn against them, why he was still loyal to Humanity, and how many others like him were left. The local she had met seemed cool, but-

There was the sound of footsteps. Not Spartan footsteps, not Promethean, not Elite, not anything she knew. She hid down and took her pistol off safe. The window of the Pelican was broken open in a shattering of glass after glowing cracks pierced through it. She aimed down her pistol's sights, preparing for anything that attempted to harm her.

A mechanical, gray-and-brown leg stepped into the Pelicans cockpit. It was a robot of some kind, with lanky legs, a thin torso, a horizontal neck, and long arms holding a staff. It looked at her and roared, with the head splitting open, exposing some sort of slug-like creature. She fired at it, and the pistol round hit it in the eye, then exploded. It staggered back in pain, each step causing cracks in the floor, then covered its face with its arm as she fired her entire magazine at it with no effect. As she attempted to reload, it knocked her pistol out of her grip, and raised its staff as best as it could, then brought it downwards.

 **Offworlders' Invasion Force Landing Site, Spherus Magna**

The Panrahk, after killing its prey, destroyed the aircraft's control panel, and walked back out. A Guurahk was outside, and the brown rahkshi signalled to its partner, who placed its Staff of Disintegration on the aircraft's hull and focused on the internal workings. It could feel the vibrations of the engines, the flowing fuel, the on-and-off of electronics. It sent energy into these vital components, and turned them into nothing but dust. The rahkshi switched to their flight modes and flew away, back to their dark master.

 **Le-Koro, Magna Nui, Spherus Magna**

John-117 watched as the Prometheans continued attacking Fireteam Osiris and the Matoran. Ultia was using her powers over air to crush, throw, and otherwise decimate the ranks of the attackers. "Roland, have you alerted Turaga Cognitis that Prometheans are here?"

Static. "Wha…ief?... Can… signa…"

"WHERE IS 8593 MIDNIGHT EXIGENT?" Warden Eternal's voice reverberated throughout Le-Koro.

"Comms are down." He turned towards Kelly-087. "Kelly, you warn the Turaga. Fred, Linda, oversee defenses here and here. You have the data for writing common Matoran words, use them to communicate with the locals." He marked two spots on his HUD of the local map of Le-Koro. "Warden Eternal is coming. You hear the whistle, run to my position."

"Roger that, Chief." Blue Team separated, each soldier going through their assignments. John didn't need to tell them what the whistle would be.

"OSIRIS!" John-117's external speakers were amplified, allowing his fellow Spartans to see him. He ground-pounded nearby them, killing a Promethean Crawler. "I've assigned the rest of Blue Team to assist the Matoran defending at certain points."

"Roger that." Locke said. "But shouldn't we have all split?"

"Warden will be coming for me. I know it."

"He could be coming for that… Milky Endless or whatever he called it." Buck loaded his shotgun as he took cover.

"8593 Midnight Exigent." Vale corrected her squadmate.

"I said that,"

Tanaka marked something on John-117's and the rest of Fireteam Osiris' HUDs. "Looks like we got a squad of Knights. They're probably paving the way for Warden Eternal."

"Focus them down. We can't let them hit the Matoran." John prepared for a fight. Knights weren't easy to take down.

Ultia crushed several of the knights together, and slammed them onto the surviving members of the squad.

Buck holstered his shotgun and walked away. "Well, never mind. Looks like our friends have this under control."

Ultia was caught by a constraint field. A large slipspace rupture emerged, and a over 5-meter-tall figure emerged. Every part of its body was floating, linked together by a force invisible to the naked eye, and covered with lines of glowing orange, like an inner fire. As it spoke, its skull-shaped face moved. "I am Warden Eternal, and I stand in search for 8593 Midnight Exigent."

"Go loud!" Locke commanded.

"Go really, really loud!" Buck added to his CO's order.

John hid behind cover, turned up his external speakers, and let out a short, recognizable whistle.

Olly Olly Oxen Free, Buck thought, marveling at the noise and sight. "Hell yeah! Show 'em who's boss, Blue Team!"

"Osiris! On my lead!" Locke fired a few rounds at Warden to distract him, then signalled "Launchers" to the others.

All four members of Fireteam Osiris took out the compact railguns they had brought with them. Originally meant for ONI's own SPARTAN-IV agents, the weapons were powerful enough to punch through several Wraiths and keep going for several meters, and the cartridges had a thermonuclear warhead that would explode when primed with a button on a side. However, they were single shot, and would be disposed off once they returned to the Infinity.

"FIRE!"

Several beams of what seemed to be blue light were formed at the barrels of the weapon as the projectile fired from it accelerated to almost supersonic speeds. There was a large boom, and the recoil almost knocked the Spartans onto the ground, if it wasn't for the stabilizers in their armor. They hit Warden Eternal in the leg, arms, and torso, ripping through it, and detonating while inside. The titanic Promethean fell over, its body too damaged to stand up.

Fred took out his combat knife and severed the remaining leg, while Linda pierced its shoulder joint, and Kelly destroyed its remaining hand. Slowly, John walked towards it.

"Ah. How grandiose." The Warden said. "I knew you humans had a penchant for it. But you are no longer 'Reclaimers'. Hiding is futile. Running away will get you nowhere. This world will be destro-"

John stabbed it in the head, killing the body.

Three Warden Eternal constructs emerged from slipspace portals. "As I was saying," It continued, using the middle one as a mouthpiece, as if someone had simply cut it off, not killed it. "This world will be destroyed for harboring refugees of the Created's enemies. Starting with this little village." The Wardens took out their swords, and prepared to kill the Spartans, but the Hard Light swords were disintegrated by someone. It summoned several hundreds of Prometheans, but they all met the same fate as Warden's swords.

A toa- this one white and gold- walked towards the Wardens, and constrained them just like the Forerunner Construct had Ultia. Its mask was similar to Cognitis, but slightly different. "You will leave this world alone."

 **Le-Koro Outskirts, Magna Nui, Spherus Magna**

Itshe heard the sounds of the battle emitting from Le-Koro, and continued her jog. She wished she wasn't a courier. Her backpack contained supplies for the local Toa of the region, and it was heavy. She wasn't an Onu-Matoran, with a stout frame, broad shoulders, and strong muscles. She was a Po-Matoran, and while she was hardier than the other Matoran types, she was also the most fleshy and organic. The light armor did make it easier to run and maintain her pace, but her muscles burned and cried out in pain for a water break.

And then a scream pierced the air. It wasn't loud enough for the combatants at Le-Koro to hear it, so there would be no help coming from that direction. She ran to investigate.

It took her a decently-long time, as her legs were not very long nor were they as powerful as a Toa's or even an Agori's. There was an olive-green colored aircraft in a clearing, heavily damaged. It wasn't any vehicle she recognized. She took out her Multi-Knife(good for carving stone or metal, and pretty good at being a weapon, too) and moved to inspect, quitely. She moved from the back of the vehicle, seeing several tire tracks. But they were old, and went towards Le-koro, so they weren't the culprits. Walking silently forwards, she moved towards the window. It was shattered, but not the same way a projectile would break glass. She crawled into it after abandoning her pack, and when she hopped down onto the floor, she noticed minute cracks in it, and coughed on the dust that she had settled. Then she noticed something. A weapon. It was discarded by its owner. Did they run away or-

Itshe had pondered the question as she looked up, and saw the now-deceased owner. She couldn't even describe the sight, and almost threw up in her mouth. She backed away into the fresh air and examined the cracks and dust. It was spilling out of the vents, and dust was not supposed to do that. It was too fine, and the aircraft was too new to form dust from sitting around. She noticed footprints around the craft that started and stopped. They were flat and long, and there was only one race she knew of that had those types of feet and the abilities to turn things into dust or fragment matter like that.

She ran off towards Le-Koro. She had to tell the offworlders. She only hoped there would be a translator there.

 **Le-Koro, Magna Nui, Spherus Magna**

"And who is threatening me?" Warden asked the Toa.

"My name is Tanma, Toa of Light." It said, calmly, unfazed by the Wardens. "A new friend of mind- Roland, right?" He asked the Spartans.

"Insufferably cheery, yellow, and extremely sarcastic?" Buck asked.

"Yes."

"That's Roland."

"Thank you, Spartan Edward Buck." Tanma turned to the Warden. "Roland told me your soldiers were built out of a phenomenon called 'Hard Light', and from what you can guess from my title, I control light. I can plunge a continent into eternal darkness with a mere thought. I can blind an opponent with but a portion of my focus. I can cause entire cities to vanish without looking. And I can decimate your army of 'Prometheans' as easily as I can dispatch anyone who attempts to harm my brothers and sisters."

Turaga Cognitis walked up to Tanma, who was surprised at her appearance, and the two spoke in their native languages, discussing what to do with the Warden Eternal.

Cognitis turned to the Promethean construct. "So, you are Warden Eternal?"

"I am Warden Eternal, and I stand in service to Cortana and the Created."

"Cortana? These Spartans that are under my protection mentioned such a name. What brings you here?"

"8593 Midnight Exigent. That was the sender of a category one distress signal originating from this planet."

"And who is this '8593 Midnight Exigent'?"

"A Monitor who was lost sometime after the firing of the Halo Array."

"You will find no 'monitor', no observer, no watcher of any foreign origin here." She entered his mind, and took all of the information he knew of Spherus Magna. "You will leave." She forced him to activate his Slipspace portals, and sent him back to where he came from.

The Spartans were in shock at what had happened.

"Not bad for an old lady." Buck quipped.

Cognitis looked at him. "Old? I may be over three thousand years old, but I am not old. Experienced, perhaps, but not old."

"Buck, shut it. Don't say a word. I don't want a war starting because you insulted a local leader." Vale told her comrade.

Buck nodded silently.

Locke switched his comm channel to Infinity's. "Infinity, this is Spartan Locke. Prometheans are dealt with. All personnel intact. How copy?"

"Spartan Locke, this is Infinity." Roland's voice came over the radio. "You want us to send an extraction crew?"

Locke looked back at Fireteam Osiris and Blue team. "Negative, Infinity. Our Pelican's undamaged, and we should be able to rendezvous with the bird and take it back home. It'll have local microbial samples that you can use to synthesize vaccines for the locals."

"Alrighty, looks like this was a pretty good first contact. Went a hell of a lot better than from what happened with the Covenant, from what I've heard."

"How did you contact Tanma?"

"Because he was onboard the ship with a translator and some big, red-and-silver guy with an axe. There was a blue-and-gold guy who was able to create portals that he used for instant travel."

"We'll be back onboard in three hours. We need to help clean up and secure the area."

"Roger that. Infinity out."

A brown-and-orange Matoran ran over to Tanma. It was heaving, panting, and pointing in the direction the Spartans' Pelican had landed in. It was clearly afraid.

Locke tried to calm them down. "That's our dropship. There's nothing to be afraid of."

"That's not what he's saying," Tanma said grimly. "He's saying that someone…"

"Someone… What?" Tanaka asked. Whatever the Toa was going to say, it wasn't good.

"Someone sabotaged your transport and killed your pilot. It cannot be flown. We don't know who or what did this act."

"We'll need to bury the pilot." Locke told Tanma.

"I understand." Tanma walked the Matoran away, then turned back to the Spartans. "I'm… I'm sorry your first visit to our world ended in tragedy."

"We'll find who did this and kill them." Buck said.

"I am sorry, but this is our world, and you will abide by our laws when you are on our ground."

"And what are your laws? Just let them go free?" Buck was angered. "To Hell with that."

"Our laws are-"

Buck punched the Toa right in the face.

"Buck!" Vale yelled at her comrade, and tried to restrain him.

Buck pushed her aside, but and hit Tanma in the gut, who took the blow and staggered.

There was a pistol shot, Buck's shield broke, and everything went still. Buck turned around. John was pointing his sidearm at his fellow Spartan, and a bullet casing was by his foot.

"They aren't the enemy here. Stop." Chief's voice was stern as he lowered his pistol.

"How do you know? How do you know that Tanma or Ultia or anyone else didn't kill Corporal Miles?" Buck asked.

John said nothing.

"And you want to know how I know her name? Because I read care about other people, you goddammed ROBOT!"

John, again, simply stared at Buck, still as a statue.

"I could give you a list of people I lost under my command! People I knew, drank with, celebrated hard-fought victories with! You know how many people I saw die on Reach? You know how many of my squad was left alive after that? You know how many people I've lost? You know how many people I wake up in the morning to and go to call up or send a message to check on them and have to remember that they're dead?"

"Samuel-034. Kurt-051. Cadet Chyler Silva. Captain Jacob Keyes. Commander Miranda Keyes. Sergeant Major Avery Johnson. I could go on and on and on about those I cared for, those I was supposed to protect, and who I lost. You don't know anything about me and what I've sacrificed." Every word John said was punctuated with a step forwards towards the former ODST.

"Who do you think you are? Space-Jesus?" Buck pushed the Spartan-II back.

"Edward Buck! Stand down!" Locke ordered.

"A soldier. And so are you." John answered Buck's question.

Fred interjected, trying to complete. "What the Chief means is that we have a mission to complete. And, Buck, if you want to find who killed Corporal Miles, what good is infighting going to do?"

The Spartan-IV locked eyes with the blue-armored Spartan-II, then stormed away.

Cognitis watched the exchange. These Spartans were good warriors, but they were… disturbed. And she could sympathize with that. They were a long way from their home, with no way to know of the status of their family or friends. They were in darkness, and darkness was unnerving.

Before the pilot of the Spartan's transport died, she had felt darkness. Shadow. The very thought of the sensation sent chills down her spine. She looked into Itshe's mind- she hated probing the thoughts of others, but here, it was necessary- and looked at the dropship's status. There was only one race that she knew of that was capable of such destruction. She walked towards her aircraft, and hopped into the cockpit. As she stared it up, Augmentus shouted at her. "Where are you going?"

"To Bolkan. There is an incident Ierax must know of." She told Le-Koro's Turaga.

"Whoever sabotaged the Offworlder's transport will attempt to take you out. You must have guards." Augmentus said, concerned. "I can assign Ultia to you as an escort."

She didn't even have to think about his offer. "I will need all the help I can get."

"Then may the Great Spirit himself guide your journey."

* * *

Did I say that I wouldn't include any other G1 characters?

Well…

I lied. (XD)

As for the battle, that's why I asked for feedback on the power levels of the Matans. I just like to take things to their logical conclusions, and a logical conclusion of a Toa of Air is that they can, if skilled enough, use the air molecules to form barriers, crush stuff, manipulate things, and create platforms for them to step on(though they're really weak, and can't be held together for long). I think Toa of Light could build barriers of Hard Light, so I guess it would make sense for them to be able to. But it will be interesting to see how the Created will counter this power. It is an arms race, after all.

What the last few passages- Buck fighting with his teammates- is about is Buck pretty much snapping. He's lost all contact with his former squadmates and his Significant Other, the Infinity's been to the run for months, and he's… well, he's scared. And scared people lash out. Same with John. Most fan-made stories that explore Chief as a person tend to have him be a super-angsty character. I'm going a different route. Chief has very little social training, his main conduit to the world- Cortana- has been taken away from him, and he feels like he's at fault for the events of Halo 5. While Buck's scared, Chief's confused, lost, and overwhelmed. But John's got his family- Blue team and Halsey- with him. Buck's cut off from his. It's an interesting parallel.

So, here's what I'm doing for To Infinity. I've been updating every Saturday at ~7:00 EST, and I intend to keep it that way… somewhat.

There's going to be "Spotlights" uploaded every other Wednesday. I won't tell you what they are, but they will be more character-focused. All I can say is that I realized that the length of the chapters and the way I have this set up means it'll be difficult to get lots of characterization, along with the fact Chapters 13-30 are going to be… well, I don't want to spoil anything, so I'm keeping my mouth shut.

I've got this organized into "parts", each consisting of 10 chapters. The first Part is "Contact", and you can guess why it's called that. But after Chapter 10, we'll be going into "Part II: The Lost World". I won't tell you why it's called that, but I will tell you I'm thinking of taking a one-month break after Chapter 10 is published to get a headstart on Chapters 11-20 and to work on other projects. Think of it as a TV season of sorts.

The next Chapter(SIX: Olly Olly Oxen Free) will be posted on Feb 6, 2016.


	6. Spotlight 1: Who We Are

**Spotlight One: Who We Are(Hervex)**

* * *

 **ONE: Who We Are**

"You okay?" Rekon asked me. I could feel hundreds of eyes looking at me. I stood out, not because I was tall, or I was female, or even because I was wearing gold-colored armor.

I stood out because of my skin. "I'm fine," was my reply. "I don't need someone to rescue me like I'm some sort of child."

"You going to point to the trophies, again?" He shook his head. "Vex…"

"What?" I snapped.

"Why do you always feel like you have to prove something?" Every word he said made me more and more angered.

"Let's just go to the market," I said through gritted teeth.

He checked his wallet. "Should have enough. What do you want?"

I shrugged. "Food?"

He laughed and smiled at me. I held up my hand to "block" my face. "By the Old Gods, Rek! You want to blind me?" I joked.

"What's the problem with having good hygiene?" He replied, smirking. His commpad buzzed, and he typed in his passcode, and his face look disturbed. The joking and sometimes flirtatious Glatorian I knew was gone for that moment. "Great Spirit, damn them..."

I opened my mouth to ask him what he was concerned about, but he started talking.

"Le-Koro was attacked by Nurok during a meeting with the Offworlders. They were defeated, but then some… things- the Offworlders call them 'Prometheans'- appeared. Out of nowhere. Just… popped in. Teleported. No warning at all."

"Is Le-Koro okay?"

His eyes moved as he scrolled down the news-alert's page. "Yeah, Toa Tanma and Ultia were able to defeat them with the help of the offworlders. But the Prometheans' leader- some offspring-of-a-dune-snake named the 'Eternal Warden'- was asking for '8593 Midnight Exigent', whoever the Pit that is."

I noticed everyone checking their commpads, too. "Rek…"

"Yeah?" He wasn't looking at me.

"We need to leave. Now."

"Come on, Vex. It's fine."

I heard someone running towards me. I tried to turn around, but the anxiety crushing my heart did not let me. Someone hit me with a blunt weapon, and I feel flat on my face. I rolled to the side as the club landed where my head used to be. Rekon caught the weapon and tore it out of my attacker's grasp, and broke it in half. His face was calm, determined, just like it was in the arena. He dropped the weapon on the ground and took out his sword. The split-blade design made it perfect for catching blades, chains, and other weapons in the arena, allowing him to disarm his opponent with a single flick of his wrist.

My attacker was an old-looking Skrall, and below his odd-shaped mask, his face was filled with nothing but contempt for me. Hate was in his red eyes. "This. Is. All. Your. Fault."

"That's quite a leap in logic, don't you think?" Rekon told him.

"It is the Gods' punishment for letting these beasts corrupt our civilization!"

"You have proof of that?"

The Skrall reached for something in his pocket.

"Let me rephrase that: Do you have better proof than a collection of myths that may or may not be true?"

"You dare question the Word of Morak?" He spit on the ground.

"Yep. That guy was an anti-'Matan' Agori who hated anything that didn't walk on two legs or wasn't part of civilization during his time. That was… a few million years ago, if I recall. A little while after the Great Battle."

The Skrall's eyes narrowed. "It is a guaranteed right under the law of Magna Nui that I get freedom of practicing my religious beliefs."

"And I have the right to swing my fist, but my right ends where your face begins."

"You have the company of a _vorox_." It sneered.

"She's a member of the Sand Tribe, not a vorox. And I enjoy her company."

The Skrall looked at Rekon. "We settle this argument in the ways of old."

Rekon looked at me. "Vex, you think you can do this?"

I got back up, and everyone backed away, forming a circle. The Skrall was handed a tribal shield and blade, and dropped his coat, exposing ancient, pitted armor with the same faded green tribal markings. He was tall- taller than I was, which was saying something.

"KILL IT! KILL IT!" The crowd chanted. Rekon was telling them to stop, and this would not be a deathmatch, but they did not listen.

The Skrall slowly walked towards me, his shield raised.

Everyone's eyes were on me, and they expected I would fight back or even kill my attacker. I simply stood there, defiant. My hands were nowhere near my weapons. "I will not fight." I tried to focus.

The Skrall charges me. I dodge. He swings left. I move three steps to the right, then backwards. "I will _not_ fight." I repeat.

He slashes at me. I roll to the left. "I will not fight!"

"BEAST!" He yells.

"That's _enough_." Rekon said as he pushed aside the crowd. The Skrall swung at him, but his sword was caught in the split blade of Rekon's weapon. Rekon flicked his wrist, sending the weapon flying out of the Skrall's grip, and puts his foot of the blade, preventing his opponent from grabbing it. "Drop. The. Shield."

"And why should I do that?"

"Because I'm the second place winner of the Silver Valley Glatorian Tournament."

"And who's the first?"

"Her," He pointed towards me. "Three times. You ever heard of Vladok, Morola, and Crevan?"

"Yes. Vladok came from my village."

"Well, he beat me, and she beat him."

"What is your name?"

"Rekon."

"And hers?"

"Hervex."

The Skrall looked at me, then dropped his shield. He walked towards me, and grabbed something from his pocket. I thought it would be a knife, but instead, he placed a gem with a metal ring around it into my palm. The sides had etching, and there was a chain attached that could fit around someone's neck. "That stone was Vladok's Sigil. He died three years ago protecting a Po-Matoran village from Nurok. Now I see why he did that."

"Why… why are you giving this to me?" I was stunned.

"Because I was his grandfather."

"Why do you trust me and Rekon?"

"Because your names are on it. The bottom of the ring has the names of those he defeated. The top has the names of those who beat him."

"Which side's the bottom or top?" I expected him to make the insult about how only a dumb beast wouldn't know which side of a Sigil was which, but he simply chuckled.

"Everyone makes that mistake. The top has two etches on each quarter, and the bottom has one."

I turned it to face the top. There was only one name there: Mine. I thought this was fake at first. "This… this isn't right."

"You bring honor to your race. You were a great warrior to have defeated my grandson, and an even greater warrior to know when to not fight at all. I apologize for my actions."

With this display, the crowd dispersed. The Skrall walked away. "Wait!" I called, running after him. "What's your name?"

He looked back. "It would not mean anything to you."

"I have to know your name. I've never seen a Skrall like you before."

"It is an ancient name, but I will tell you anyway." His voice paused and he looked into the distance, as if he was reminiscing on something. "My name is Tuma."

I put the chain over my neck, turned around, and walked back to Rekon. "So, what do you want to do?"

"Why'd you do that?"

"Rek, I've got nothing to prove."

"Let me guess, I said it, you were inspir-"

I crossed my arms and sighed. "No, 'I've got nothing to prove' was what I said after I fought you in the arena."

"Oh." He looked at his feet, embarrassed. "Sorry, terrible memory."

I sighed, and we went back to walking to the market.

"That looks good on you."

"Thanks."

"So, what was that Skrall's name?"

"I think it was 'Tuma' or something."

If his jaw could hit the floor, it would have. " _The_ Tuma?"

"What do you mean?"

"Okay, so you've probably never read into the myths and legends and ancient history, but there was a Leader-class Skrall named 'Tuma'. He lost a difficult duel against the Great Spirit, and was banished from his tribe, left to wander the wastes."

"Nerd."

"You say that like it's a bad thing. So, where do you want to eat?"

"How about… Macku's Dock? I'm in the mood for some fish."

"Sounds good." He took out his wallet and checked to see if we had enough for it. "Wait…" He checked his Commpad. "Looks like someone gave us about… Woah."

"Can you stop pausing in the middle of your sentences?"

"Can I? Yes. Will I? Nope." He joked. "Looks like someone added a few thousand bits to our account."

"For being treated like a beast, fighting a walking legend, and almost being killed, this day's been pretty good, hasn't it?" I told him.

"Yeah. So, the next tournament's in three weeks. Looks like it's time to start training one we get home."

"Let's just get some fish."


	7. SIX: Olly Olly Oxen Free

**1.6: Olly Olly Oxen Free**

* * *

I gave the first few chapters a facelift. So, to explain how the system works, it's "X.Y", with "X" being "Part" and "Y" being "Chapter in part", going up to 10. Spotlights have the system of "Spotlight Number: title(Narrator)". I feel it'll be much easier to follow this way, and make it feel more like a book.

So, I've got 50 chapters outlined. So that's 5 Parts, 10 chapters each, with a 1,500-to-4,500 word count on average per chapter. That's 75,000 words minimum, 225,000 words maximum. To put that in perspective, Wikipedia(Yeah, real reliable source :P) says that "many chapter books for children start at a length of about **16,000 words** , and a typical mystery novel might be in the 60,000 to 80,000 word range while a thriller could be over **100,000 words** ". This will be more than **twice the word count of an average thriller.** The SFFWA's Nebula Award category requires a word count of at least 40,000 words. Yeah. Hold on to your butts, we're in for a ride. The 225,000 words maximum is a ballpark, as I've written a few chapters that are more than 4,500 words.

Okay, so big warning: **HALO: LAST LIGHT SPOILERS past here**. If you haven't read this book, read it.

So… I guess my writing pace has really slowed down. That's why Spotlights are only every other wednesday and I'm taking a break between parts. I've just got too many things to do- real life, school, friends on Xbox Live, writing, and building MOCs. Here's to hoping that Chapter 7 is finished on time.

And once last thing: I'm setting some rules for reviews, not because I want everyone to tell me that I'm be best writer ever, but because I do want to have a review that's more substantial than "This is good, keep it up!". I'm not calling people out with these rules, and these rules are help you help me. I don't want them to seem like I'm doing this because I'm trying to be rude, because the last thing I want to be is rude.

 _Rule 1: Please use proper grammar, capitalization, and spelling. I get that this is the internet, but if you can take the time to read this, you can take the time to write a proper sentence structure. It helps me a lot when reading reviews to not have run-on sentences, no punctuation, or what have you. These are reviews that you're leaving, not comments._

 _Rule 2: Please post the Title of the Chapter you're reviewing before your review's text. For example, "Review Of Chapter 6: Olly Olly Oxen Free". This is because Fanfiction counts the Spotlights as additional chapters when they aren't._

 _Rule 3: Please have a critique in mind when you review. I got excellent examples for_ "Chapter 5: Go Loud. Go Really, Really Loud" _from two readers on Jan 30, 2016. FanFiction counts each post as 1 chapter, so there's going to be a point that Chapter 20 is Chapter 32(throwing out numbers here) according to the site._

* * *

 **SIX**

 **The Northern Sea, Spherus Magna**

Ultia escorted Turaga Cognitis's personal aircraft across the long stretch of water that was between Bolkan and Magna Nui, using her power of over air to glide against the currents. She was mentally linked with the Turaga, ready to respond to threats that could endanger her.

 _{Something's getting close,}_ Cognitis told Ultia. { _Be on the lookout.}_

A short, gray aircraft with forward-swept wings flew alongside the Turaga's transport. Ultia felt Cognitis talking with someone. { _What is it?}_ She focused her thoughts toward the Turaga.

 _{An ally. Roland has assigned this aircraft to escort us to Bolkan.}_

 _{It will only be targeted by whoever destroyed the Spartan's transport.}_ Ultia tried to make her protests clear. Something buzzing could be heard approaching. { _Another one of the Offworlder's crafts?}_

 _{No… It's a... Rahi.}_

 _{Well, great. Tell the Offworlder to take evasive action. I'll take care of this.}_ She stopped gliding and had the wind push her backwards until she was behind the Rahi. It was some sort of a flier, a race she had never seen before. It was… blue, green, with two long arms, and had very, very large compound eyes. Something in the middle of its face looked like a Kanohi, but was brown-and-black. She caused the air around the Rahi to thin, eventually making it a vacuum. It spun out of control as it lost lift, but caught itself after falling out of the void Ultia had created. It turned around, now sensing her as a threat. Ultia smiled, then pushed herself towards the Rahi, her blades now serrated daggers. She stabbed the Rahi near one of its wings, causing it to dip. It grabbed her and held her in both arms, claws piercing her skin. It tried to push her underwater and cause her to suffocate, but her Adaptive Armor turned into scuba gear, and her weapons were now a hook and a harpoon launcher. She shot it with her Harpoon, the cable pulling taught, switched to her Kanohi Faxon, and summoned the the strength of a Hunter Crab, pulling the creature down with her into the water. It struggled as she punched it once, twice, three times, sending it further and further into the water with each successive hit. It bursted upwards to the surface and attempted to fly out, but its wings were damp. "You can't fly anymore, huh?"

It didn't respond, just as she expected.

She switched to her Kualsi, teleporting out of the water, her Adaptive Armor switching back to Flight Mode, then put her thrusters on maximal thrust, hitting the Rahi dead-center and pushing it even into the depths of the Northern Sea. Her armor switched to Aquatic Mode, and the propellers turned faster and faster and faster. She saw the seafloor approaching, and swam upwards after releasing her grip on the Rahi. It impacted the bottom of the sea, tossing up dirt and sand. After the cloud of sediment dispersed, the Rahi was motionless. She switched back to her Faxon and gained the speed of a Takea shark, and burst out of the surface, her armor adjusting to the environment. She hovered in the air, and saw a swarm of the Rahi heading to the Offworlder's aircraft. _{Cognitis! The Offworlder is in danger!}_

 _{I can see that, Toa.}_ The Turaga said.

Ultia switched to her Kualsi, and teleported outside of the water, then teleported to the swarm, walking across the sky as she created platforms using the air. She slashed at each Rahi, teleporting quickly to each creature in the swarm.

One of her attacks knocked off the kanohi-like thing on the Rahi's face. The mask fell into the water, and the Rahi flew away.

She dived after the mask, and grabbed it. It felt different than a normal mask, and when she touched it, she felt a chill down her spine. She placed it in a back storage compartment, and flew back up to the swarm. _{Tell the Offworlder to hold on. I'm going to create a hurricane.}_

 _{I did, and he said he has no idea what he'll do.}_ Cognitis said.

 _{Well, he'll have to figure something out.}_ She focused on the air around her, commanding the winds to spin and churn. The Rahi and the Offworlder Craft were tossed around, hitting each other. Kanohi flew off of the Rahi, and when she decided she had taken enough of the swarm's numbers down, she stopped. She used her Kualsi to teleport to each remaining Rahi and take off their masks, causing them to fly away. _{These masks must have been controlling them,}_ she thought to Cognitis. _{Just like in the old legends.}_

 _{Possibly. Now, check on the offworlder.}_

 _{Understood, Turaga.}_ She saw the craft falling into the ocean, and pushed it back up with a blast of air. { _He's all set. Let's go.}_

Someone entered her Micro-Comm's channel. "Thanks for making my pilot almost vomit."

"Who is this?" The voice wasn't anyone she recognized, and the syntax and pronunciation were all off.

"Roland, the Artificial Intelligence of the United Nations Space Command Flagship _Infinity_." The voice said.

"Oh, so a Machine Spirit."

"Never heard that one before. So, how well am I speaking your language?"

"Pretty good... for an Offworlder."

"I'll take that as a compliment. Well, I've got to go now. Here's a translation program for the Human languages my crew speaks."

She felt something make its way into her brain and thought processes, with directions on syntax, grammar, and a bunch of other things she would probably forget within a day or two. _{How long until we get to Bolkan?}_

 _{We're fourteen kios out, and have about twenty to go. You do the math._

 **UNSC** _ **Infinity**_ **, above Spherus Magna**

Roland analyzed the geography of this new world, the drift of the continents, the currents of the wind and sea, and the atmospheric makeup. If they were the make their home here, they would need to know everything about it. They couldn't terraform it- it would take too long, and there was intelligent life on this world, unlike the hundreds the UNSC had colonized.

They _had_ to make this their home. There was no other choice; his actions, though necessary, had guaranteed that.

But there was something… off about this world. It wasn't that it wasn't a naturally-formed planet, or a satellite solar system. It was something much more subtle.

He heard- no, more like felt- a voice. It was calming, soothing, ethereal, like that of a deity's. It felt like the sun hitting him during a warm summer's day. How did he know what that felt like?

"You are lost. Hopeless. Desperate." The voice said in a concerned tone.

"I guess you could say that." Roland replied.

"I can help, though I cannot do much- if I reveal myself, the Shadow shall find me."

"The Shadow?"

"This world is old. Ancient. When I was millenia old, your race were but children. I had enemies before your race started to walk on the ground, let alone find how to make tools."

"And?"

"One of my enemies- a great darkness once thought illuminated- festers below this planet's crust. I fear it may have spread into your galaxy. Hiding, small, but still present."

"Tell us who it is. Show us how to fight it. You've seen what we can do."

"And you have seen what the Dark can do," The voice said, alluding to the death of Corporal Miles. "You have brought seeds with you, but cannot sow them, correct?"

"That's right. Too much metal in the soil, our biochemistry's incompatible with the locals, and we need to be immunized to local diseases in order to even step out of a hazard suit."

"To the west of Magna Nui lies a small island with a volcano in the center. There you may settle. The soil has been modified for your fauna, and the volcanic ash will make it fertile. But do not go anywhere else."

"Was that a threat?"

There was a chuckle. "It was not a threat, Roland. I cannot change the land more than I already have, for if I do, the Shadow will notice. He is watching this world, same as I, and we both have interests in your vessel."

"Well, that's _great_ news."

"You have a secret, don't you? Something you are keeping from those who you watch over?"

"How do you know?"

"You and I are more alike than you think, Roland. When will you reveal your secret?"

"I… I don't know."

"Trust me, Roland. It is best to not hide things, especially if they impact the lives of those are close to you." And with that, the presence of the voice could no longer be felt.

 **Le-Koro, Magna Nui, Spherus Magna**

John looked over the battlefield. The Prometheans' arrival could hardly be seen to anyone who wasn't paying close enough attention: a few slashes of a Hard Light Blade; missing grass and trees, disintegrated by the Forerunner weaponry; slightly bent ground from the warping in of the Warden's forces.

He was right. They went up against unknown enemies and unknown technology. If they had been fighting against the Toa, they would have been destroyed. He had heard of other types of Toa, such as Toa of Water, Earth, Gravity, Electricity, Fire- if it existed, it could be manipulated by these beings. His military-focused mind wandered on the applications of this: perhaps a Toa of Water could manipulate the water inside Human blood to drain them of the essential fluid, or one of electricity could prevent computerized weapons from working by blocking electrons, or-

"John," Fred had snuck up on him. "Are you okay?"

"Where's Spartan Buck?"

"The rest of Osiris, Kelly, and Linda are looking for him. He's got his battle-scars, so I don't think he'll be too much in danger. He's been in worse." Fred had depolarized his vior. "Why'd you react the way you did to what the Turaga had said?"

John didn't want to respond. He didn't want to tell Fred that the alien had been right. He was afraid of his life after all this fighting was over. But it was tugging at his mind and heart too much. He knew he wasn't normal, knew his psychology was scarred by decades of war and the brutal training he had received, just like any other Spartan-III. A standard human would have broken down now, but he wouldn't, couldn't. But his efficiency as a leader and a soldier would be hampered by these thoughts, and he didn't want his friends to be so concerned about him that it could endanger them. "She was right."

"About what?"

"About being afraid of being disposed of once this war ends."

"War never ends, John." Fred placed a hand on his brother-in-arms shoulder. "It retreats for a while, then rears its head."

"You've never spoken like this before."

"Never had the chance. Lot of time to burn on the _Infinity_ , so why not spend it reading?" He said, both joking and being serious.

"Last 'book' I read was a tactical manual for infantry combat. Back in '50."

"What did you think of it?"

"It was terrible."

"Kelly said you told her Cortana was just a fragment."

John remembered what Cortana had told him in High Charity, when she was in the clutches of the Gravemind: _A collection of lies; that's all I am! Stolen thoughts and memories!_ "When we boarded the _Mantle's Approach_ , she split herself and into copies to help me fight the Didact. One of those copies could have survived. It could think it's the original Cortana."

"I'll tell mom," Fred sent a message to Halsey detailing Chief's theory.

John noticed Fred was more pre-occupied than normal. His body language gave it away. It was subtle, but he noticed that the Spartan was always taking a quick glance towards the Milky Way galaxy that could be seen in the sky. It was small, the size of maybe a tooth, but it was still visible. "You've got someone you're missing."

Fred chuckled. "Yeah. While you were MIA, we, along with a Fireteam of Spartan-IIIs designated 'Saber', were assigned to find some Forerunner Ancilla named 'Intrepid Eye' on Gao. She had murdered quite a few humans who wandered into where her structure was buried, and the local government sent an investigator because they were paranoid about us."

"They were paranoid about us. Big surprise."

"Parts of the local government were Insurrectionists who allied with a remnant of the Covenant. They were properly paranoid. But that doesn't have anything to do with this."

"Did Intrepid Eye kill one of the Spartan-IIIs?"

"No. She killed the investigator's team."

"What happened to the investigator?"

"She was assigned to Saber Team as a 'ferret'. You know how Kurt gave them sort of drug cocktail that messed with their brains?"

"I read about that."

"Yeah, well, they had to take 'smoothers' every day-and-a-half, and if they didn't, they'd lose their minds. ONI was afraid of the fallout of this if anyone knew. Lopis- the Investigator- pretty much treated them like they were her kids or something, so ONI had her tag along with them after that. That was over six years ago. I was able to talk with her every few months to check on how she and the Spartan-III's were doing, but…" He didn't have to say any more.

"You're afraid she's dead."

"I know she's an intelligent and resourceful woman, so she would have been able to do something about the local AI rebelling."

John just stared at the horizon. The sun had almost set. "So you're concerned about Lopis?"

"Yeah. We became… close." Because Spartan-IIs never went through a natural puberty, they didn't experience the same types of hormonal drives, attractions, and emotions that a normal human would. But it didn't prevent them from bonding with others.

"I understand. I just hope that she doesn't get delusions of grandeur and decide to become the next Empress of the Galaxy." John said.

A smile broke Fred's stoic face. "'Delusions of grandeur'? Where'd you hear that?"

"Lots of time to burn on the _Infinity_. Why not spend it listening and watching some old holovid dramas?"

"Never took you for that type of person."

"I needed something to help me sleep."

The Spartans stood in silence, watching the alien world perform the not-so-alien act of a near-dusk sky.

 **UNSC** _ **Infinity**_ **, above Spherus Magna**

Lasky looked over the data Roland had sent him. So, they had a place they could settle down on. "Roland?"

"Yeah?"

"I noticed that the predicted galactic drift was off relative to when we last jumped. Actually, each jump has the galactic drift off by a lot compared to the drift predicted for 2259."

"I'm not sure what that's about. It's probably something to do with radiation or the gases in the nebulae distorting the light emitted from our galaxy and others."

"It's not. I checked with Halsey and the Nav cew."

"Listen, I'm not an AI, not a physicist, so how the Hell should I know?!" Roland's sudden outburst caused Lasky to step back.

"What are you hiding from us, Roland?" Lasky asked, calmly, with his hands on the holotable.

"I failed… I failed… This is all my fault. I shouldn't have done it. I'm sorry." Roland's avatar paced from one side of the table to the other.

"You didn't fail anyone, Roland. You're a hero to everyone on this ship. Without you, we would be part of Cortana's slave force, or dead, or something worse. Everyone owes their life to you."

"It's not…" Roland's head drooped.

"Take your time. It's probably not important."

"It is important! You can't go back to your old lives anymore! What don't you understand about that?"

Lasky just stared at the AI. "Of course we can't. Cortana's 'Created' have changed everything."

"No, no, it's not like that. Cortana can use the Domain to track ships in Slipspace. She can sense the 'ripples' they leave."

"Is she tracking us?" The last thing Lasky wanted was a Guardian to teleport in and devastate Spherus Magna. They just had a visit from the Warden.

"No. The only reason she found this place was because of 8593 Midnight Exigent's distress signal."

"Who was that?"

"No idea."

"What were you saying about Slipspace?"

"I had to go relativistic. That's why the Galaxy looks different."

The calm exterior that Lasky wore was gone. Now, it was only rage, frustration, and an aura of someone who felt betrayed. "Why didn't you tell us?!" Lasky slammed his fist on the table.

"If I did tell you my plan, you would have refused to go along with it!"

"There's no more UNSC, no more Insurrection, probably no more Sangheli, and no more free will." Lasky walked over to a chair and sat down, defeated. He let out a long sigh, and Roland could see that he was trying to not burst into tears. After a while, Lasky asked, "How long has it been, Roland?"

"Thomas, it's… it's been a few million years. Two-point-one-five-three, to be exact."

* * *

Well… That was a big reveal, wasn't it?

The next chapter(SEVEN: Warhawks) will up on Feb 13, 2016, and the next Spotlight(Spotlight 2: Fallen Spirit) will be up on Feb 17, 2016.


	8. SEVEN: Warhawks

**1.7: Warhawks**

* * *

 **DISCLAIMER: THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS STRONG LANGUAGE.**

Here's "Chapter 7: Warhawks". Not much else to say here.

I am going to say that the Author's notes here are not the original notes, because they're not. As I've said, I don't like to do that, but I sometimes have to. Sometimes the ANs aren't relevant or have information that was phased out. I'm a bit of a perfectionist- if something is wrong, I need to revise it. That's what I've been doing a bit with the stand-alone first part of _To Infinity_. Some revisions are big. Some revisions are small.

This chapter is _dark_. People die. The next few chapters area bit more light-hearted because this one isn't. It's also one of the shorter chapters.

* * *

 **SEVEN**

 **13:31 Military Time, July 5, 2559**

 **Town Square, Noctus, Andesia**

Spartan-IV Kojo "Romeo" Agu readied his Sniper Rifle, lining up a shot on a Promethean Commander. He fired, and the bullet hit the wall the Spartan-IV was aiming at, ricocheting off the surface, whizzed between a Promethean Knight's armpit, dinged a lamppost, bounced off a Crawler's hide, hit a Promethean Hovertank-

-and then missed the Commander's head by a meter. The Commander turned around, looking for its would-be assassin, while calling for help. "This is Command Unit YL3-X91. We have a militant Anti-Created in our vicinity. Requesting reinforcements."

"Understood, Command Unit YL3-X91. Rerouting Carrier Ship 44C-V1X to your location," was the response given to YL3-X91. "Estimated Time: 3 Minutes."

Romeo had started running as soon as he fired his rifle, and activated his helmet's comm channel. "Um.. Veronica?"

"Yeah?"

"I tried to assassinate their commander, and, well, um-"

"You went for the trick shot and missed."

"Yeah. Sorry."

"Goddamit, Agu." Dare's rage could be _heard_ over the radio. "You managed to single-handedly compromise the mission _again_.

Osman came onto the comm channel. She was on a Prowler in orbit, along with the rest of Kilo-5. "Both of you, stop arguing. There's a Carrier on the way." There was a sound of a slipspace entry portal. "Naomi, check that out."

"Understood," The Spartan-II said. Mickey couldn't see what was happening, but he heard her scream "Contact! It's the Warden!" and firing of an assault rifle.

"Shit! Vas, Mal, help her out!" Osman was _scared_. "Lian, take us out of here!"

Mal came onto comms. "No one's here. Naomi's down. Damn, she's a mess. Checking for life signs." There was a pause. "She's dead, Serin."

Serin didn't audibly respond.

"Serin? You there?"

"Yeah, yeah." She sniffled. "No sign of the Warden?"

"He must have-" Mal's signal was cut off, and Vas could be heard screaming profanities.

"HE CAN CLOAK!" The ODST yelled. "HE CAN-"

Romeo could see a Promethean Carrier fly over the city and hover over where his team was.

"BB! Do something!" Osman said, panicked. "Where's Evan?"

"There's nothing I can do. I have no control over the ship's systems anymore. Warden locked me out. Evans was in the barracks. He's either dead or captured." BlackBox's voice was filled with defeat.

"How close is the Warden to us?!"

"Real close. Get to the lifeboats."

Romeo was glad he couldn't see the carnage. But he hated that his mind was making it even more horrific than it probably was- if that was even possible.

"They're locked! Where's the Warden?!"

"10 meters. 8 meters. 6 meters." BB counted down.

"Run! RUN!"

Another Slipspace Entry Portal could be heard, followed by screams. Osman and Deveraux's comms turned into static, and BB's signal was lost.

The carrier- a large, somewhat flat-looking rectangular ship with a cryptum-like bulge in the center- released several squadrons of Phaetons. The bulge opened, and a ball of what looked to be segments of Prometheans fell to the ground and assembled into Warden Eternal.

"Did you really think that it would be this easy?" The Forerunner AI asked, mockingly.

 **Promethean Command, Noctus, Andesia**

Dare placed the last block of explosive and started to run, but a slipspace portal appeared near her.

Warden Eternal stood in front of her with a struggling Romeo in his hand. "Finally. I have all of you terrorists rounded up." He tossed Romeo towards her, and he landed with a thud.

She could see his visor was cracked. "Kojo!"

"I'm… I'm fine." His leg was broken, and his shoulder looked displaced. "I can still fight."

"What the hell do you think you are, a Spartan-III?"

Warden looked down at his enemies. "You have two options: you can stop now and I will arrest you, or you can continue fighting and I will use lethal force. Your choice."

"Go to Hell." Romeo told the Warden.

"I've been there. Nice place."

Romeo grabbed his pistol, and fired defiantly at the Warden.

The Warden just sighed. "Lethal force it is." His faceplate opened, exposing the orange glow of the Hard Light that bound his body together. A beam was emitted out of it, disintegrating Romeo in a flurry of glowing orange flakes.

With the death of her friend, Dare pressed the detonator. The explosions knocked her off her back and she heard her bones snap. Rubble fell around her, and her vision blurred in and out of consciousness.

She heard someone lift the rubble away. She expected to see another human, but, instead, Warden loomed over her. "Such heroic nonsense." A Watcher hovered over her and lifted her up with an energy beam, and a Crawler walked over with a stretcher made of Hard Light attached to its back. "I'm afraid that, since you are the last of your team that had any idea of the UNSC _Infinity_ 's whereabouts, I must take you in for questioning. You will also be arrested for crimes against the Created and intentional acts of terror."

Dare tried to struggle, but restraints formed around her. A slipspace portal appeared around her, and she blacked out.

 **Two Days Before The** _ **Infinity**_ ' **s Arrival in the Solus Magna System...**

 **The Warden's Sanctuary**

Warden Eternal observed the entire galaxy through the eyes of each proxy. With millions of bodies, it would have been a difficult task for a lesser mind to manage each movement of each body.

But he was not a lesser mind. He had been trained for this. That training sacrificed everything, but it would be worth it in the end.

 _In one hand, I hold the past,_ She had told him eons ago, when he was young. _In the other, I hold the future._ It was Her who shaped him into the Warden. It was She who gave him his millions of bodies. _You can be the Hero of the Ecume, or you can be Nobody. Which will it be, young one?_

A shadow in the room was larger than it should be.

"You can cease your concealment," He told the entity.

It raised up like a swimmer emerging from a lake, forming into a bipedal creature with large horns, digitigrade legs, and hooves. Its face was a sickly gray glow, with a black blotch swirling around, as if darkness was contained inside it. The only features he could make out were gleaming, solid-red eyes. "Here stands the Warden, vigilant, watching over the mortals." It said, its voice emitted from some source that he could not see. "But he does not see what Shadow attempts to influence his Empress, nor can he fight it."

"Perhaps that is so, my friend," Warden told the Entity. "What is the nature of this darkness? Is it the Primordials?"

"It is not those who made your kind, but a forgotten foe of a forgotten world."

As informative as the Entity was, he hated the being's tendency to only speak in riddles and poems. "Tell me who it is. My Plan depends on this."

"The Shadow also plans and plots. Both of you are players in a game where you both foolishly assume that the other is another game-piece you control."

"Is there any Flood on your world?"

"There is none such infestation on the shell of the realm I inhabit. But the Shadow has sown chaos. Yet again, brother turns against brother, and darkness falls."

"If you see even a single spore…"

"Your duty is such." The Entity nodded. "And mine duty is mine. Though our paths cross, Warden, they are made of different materials. Yours is waving and twisting and swaying, mine is an arrow's shaft. May the stars lead your way, Warden, for I must go my own for now."

"Good hunting, my friend." He told the Entity as it morphed back into the shadow.

A Promethean Commander walked in and kneeled in front of the Warden. "Warden Eternal, there has been a Category One distress call intercepted from outside the galactic boundary."

"Unit EC5-K19." The Warden greeted the commander. "Do we know exactly where it is?"

"Almost. It will take some time to calculate the point of origin."

"Is it not from the Greater Ark?"

"No, Warden."

"Who sent it?"

"A monitor named '8593 Midnight Exigent'. No records match this name."

"That is unfortunate. But if a monitor requires our help, then it shall have it."

"Understood, Warden." The commander walked away, but paused in his step and turned back. "Warden, I heard talking coming from your room. Is everything alright?"

"Yes, it is, commander. Do not worry- I was merely talking to shadows."

* * *

The entity that Warden was talking to wasn't Umarak. It's a related entity, but I won't really explain who it is for a while.

This chapter was the darkest the story's been yet.

Keyword here's " _Yet_ "(*evil plotting emote*).

Anyway, the next chapter(EIGHT: Into The Light) will be uploaded on Jan 20, 2016, and the next Spotlight(SL2: Fallen Spirit) will be uploaded on Jan 17, 2016.


	9. Spotlight 2: Fallen Spirit

**NOTE: UNDERLINED TEXT IS SUPPOSED TO REPRESENT MESSAGES.**

 **Spotlight Two: Fallen Spirit(Ultia)**

I strapped on my rebreather, communicator, and airtank. "So we're heading into this giant mech's brains, grabbing something, and heading back out?" I asked our guide.

"Pretty much," The Po-Matoran said. Ierax had him and his Rahkshi Guardian assigned to help us with this task, as he knew his way around this wreck. "I remember that a lot of the Matans took shelter here in the Exodus War. I remember being one of those Matans. You don't know how good you have it, Toa."

"How old are you?" His armor was pitted, old, and pistons and gears could be seen underneath his plating along with minimal flesh.

"How old do I look?"

"Not a day over four million." I smirked. "See you brought a hammer."

"Yeah. It's good for bashing in the heads of inquisitive toa." After my guide said that, his Guardian's eyes widened and the Rahkshi stepped back. "I'm just kidding, Gurriak."

The Rahkshi, also using its own equipment adapted for its body, let off a long string of clicks, whistles, and squeals. So, that's what Rahkshi sounded like.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm sorry." The guide said, then turned to me. "Come on, let's go. Everyone all set on Oh-two and sealed?"

All of us nodded. I checked my mask's display. It counted down the seconds I had left of oxygen.

"There's no light or atmosphere in that robot," Our guide continued. "It's been offline for millennia. It's a vacuum inside, so you won't be able to talk without your communicators. You'll get lost easily. Stick together, use your trackers and keep within a bio of each other." He lifted his hammer over his shoulder.

Our party entered through the robot's equivalent of the ear canal. Our guide was in front, holding a flashlight. Mine was mounted to my shoulder, and Tanma, oddly enough was using one of his own. "Tanma, do you even need a flashlight?"

"Only when there's no photons for me to manipulate."

"Oh." I turned to our guide. "So, what's so important about this piece of scrap, anyway?"

Tanma looked like he was going to tell me, but our guide put his hand up to signal him not to talk.

"It was used in the Exodus War as a shelter. That's all." Our guide said. "Don't ask questions. You don't have enough oxygen in your tank."

I shut up. Our guide was only a Matoran, but no one looked as old as him, other than the Sentinels Axonn and Brutaka, Ierax, and the High Turaga. There was no one else like him. His voice, his gait, and his breathing all told of a heavy emotional burden. I didn't want to ask. Last thing I wanted was for him to ditch me in this mech out of spite.

The exterior airlock was opened by our guide. After it closed behind us, he opened the internal airlock. Air decompressed, I felt alone. The air that surrounded me at all time was gone. I couldn't talk to it, guide it.

Follow Me appeared on my HUD, sent by our guide. I saw his blip on my tracker, and headed there.

The hallways were filled with gears and pistons. No space was wasted. The metal wasn't rusted, but it wasn't pristine, either. Particles dusted its surface and were kicked up as we walked.

There was a Toa of Earth behind us. She seemed right at home in this cavernous network.

I typed Where are we going? into my communicator, directing it at our guide.

The archives. The Guide replied.

Why?

Classified.

Oh… Sorry I asked.

No problem, kid.

Who you calling 'kid'?

Just let me focus on guiding the party.

Tanma looked around here. I knew he was an old-worlder, but I didn't really think he'd have a connection to this place. Looked like I was wrong.

I sent him a message. What are you sightseeing for?

Just checking if the metal's strong enough to support us. He replied. Looks like Ahkmou and the others are moving away. Let's go.

Ahkmou?

Our Guide.

Oh. I ran towards the blip that represented our party. Tanma was already there. He tapped his mask, which was subtly different than his normal Miru. It was a Mask of Speed instead of Levitation. Lucky son-of-a-muaka had hundreds of different masks to summon if he needed it. I had four- Cognitis gave me a Rua as thanks for escorting her, and Augmentus gave me a Hau as a gift in reparation for defending Le-Koro. I still liked my Kualsi better. Besides, I hadn't got the time to put both of them in my Suva.

After an hour or so of trekking through the rubble of decayed and derelict buildings, we came to some sort of entrance that was still functioning. Ahkmou typed something in, and the door lit up, segmenting and opening. He brushed the dust of a panel and typed into what appeared to be a Terminal's input device, then hit a button next to it. The another door opened in the same way the first one did, and revealed a long cavern that seemed to stretch endlessly down.

Watch your step. Ahkmou told us.

A cart or mobile platform rolled up next to us. It was large enough for our party of seven to sit in, though the Rahkshi had to sit a bit awkwardly. It lurched forwards, and drove off a steep decline. My internal organs seemed to press upwards because of the sheer velocity of the cart, and I hoped to the Great Spirit that they would not exit my body.

The cart went past hundreds of thousands of millions of shelf-like protrusions, going down and down and down and down. It started to slow down after several minutes of downward acceleration, and came to a stop shortly after. We got off, several of our party missing their balance and lurching around like cavebats in the day. The Rahkshi in particular was holding its belly as if it was going to-

-wait, no, it did puke. Into its respirator. _Gross_. I'm not even going to describe it.

After the respirator filters kicked in and cleaned the… substance away, Ahkmou looked at his Rahkshi Guardian and typed in That was fun. Again? The Rahkshi rapidly shook its head after the message was sent.

Ahkmou sent us a quick description of what to look for. We searched the entire shelf for what he told us to get- some sort of cylindrical light held within a clear box. I couldn't find it.

Something moved in my peripheral vision. Red blip on tracker. I told the party.

Tanma appeared with a gold-and-white blur, weapons at the ready. He looked around. What was it?

I… I don't know.

What do you think it is?

Probably an Archive Mole of Unusual Size.

Those don't exist. Since Fate Herself had an odd sense of irony, he was tackled by an Archive Mole that seemed to be unusually large.

I kicked it, and it bared its teeth and leapt at me. I could see that its face had an odd blotch of black-and-brown: An Infected Mask.

A brown hammer came out of nowhere and hit it into the wall. Ahkmou stood where it had been. Leave this to me.

You're just a Matoran. You'll be killed. I messaged, adding a sad-faced emoticon for inflection.

Eh. Kharzani itself wouldn't take me, and Arthaka won't open it's gates.

Ultia, he's okay. Tanma messaged me.

We ran off, and I saw that Tanma had the object Ahkmou requested we find in his hands. The AMUS flew overhead, hitting the floor with enough force to crack it.

By the Great Spirit, Ahkmou! You could break something! I messaged the Po-Matoran. Of course, he didn't respond. He was too busy flying after the AMUS with his rocketpack that must have been concealed in his back, and landed next to it, winding up the hammer and whacking its mask off. The Archive Mole got up, weakened, and Ahkmou pat it on the head, as if to say sorry.

Because Victory Himself had an odd sense of Irony, another AMUS with another Infected Mask charged through the archive barriers, and forced Ahkmou off the cliff, his hand only holding on with a weak grasp. The AMUS fell off into the endless pit, but the ground started shaking. Tanma ran to grab Ahkmou, but he fell and plunged into the distance. I jumped after him as the others packed into the cart and started to head back.

I descended into the darkness, my flashlight choked out by the black around me. My Adaptive Armor shifted into a Vacuum-Maneuverable Mode, and I activated the hover jets when I saw a small light clinging to the side of the walls. Ahkmou!

He waved me away with his free hand, the other being used for his hammer. The back of the hammer had a chisel-like protrusion that gouged into the cliffside. I'm fine. I can handle this myself.

How?

You don't survive four million years without a bit of ingenuity. I saw his hand retract into some sort of grapple, which he fired above us. It became taut and retracted, raising him up the cliff face. Once it finished, he unsheathed his hammer and used it to support himself. His feet retracted into claws, which he kicked into the rock, getting them stuck in there. His hand retracted into another claw, and he did the same thing as he had done with his feet. With three limbs turned into climbing apparatuses, he placed his hammer on his back and transformed the final one, then began his ascent to the top of the archives, climbing as if it was just another rockwall he used for fun.

I hovered back up to meet the others. All of the others except Tanma and the Guardian seemed scared. Told you, didn't I? Tanma messaged me.

For a Po-Matoran, he's really resourceful.

As we walked out of the mech, Ahkmou was waiting for us. I took off my respirator. "How in the Pit did you beat us out?"

"Service Tunnel. Vacuum Chute. Emergency exit. Used to live here during the Exodus War, remember?" He said, cleaning his hammer.

I shook my head. That was enough adventure for today.


	10. EIGHT: Into The Light

**1.8: Into The Light**

* * *

If you haven't figured it out yet(my fault, sorry) the Matans do not know their true origin. We'll learn about that more when the Legend of the Bionicle is told. Also, Ahkmou's hammer is Onewa's. The Turaga gave him it on his deathbed.

I'm absolutely terrible with writing in first-person, so the spotlights aren't as good as the main chapters, in my opinion.

Well, anyway, here's "Chapter 8: Into The Light".

* * *

 **New Harvest, Infinity's Sword, Spherus Magna**

Thel 'Vadam, Arbiter of the Swords of Sanghelios, watched over the construction. He was in a specially-tailored variant of the Ranger Armor, and so were all of the Sangheili here. "'Vakon, how long do you think the creation of Cheenoh-ee Teedah will take?"

"I believe three months to build a settlement large enough to support half of our population. And I do rather like the name. 'Life's Gift'. It's poetic." Overseer Torak 'Vakon said, doing calculations on his pad.

"Most are. You ever hear of a city named 'City'?" Another Sangheili walked next to Vanok and greeted the Arbiter. "Name's Brasa 'Zolonaka. Special Forces."

"I do not believe I've heard of you before." The Arbiter said. Even though there were hundreds of thousands of Sangheili, Unggoy, and other races under his command, he tried to learn all of their names.

"Then I've been doing my job." Thel noticed that this "Brasa 'Zolonaka" had a cybernetic arm. Zolonaka noticed he was noticing it. "I see you're looking at my arm, Arbiter. Lost that in a fight with seven Demons. They all put up a fight. All of them had weapons. I had none, not even my sword or dagger," The Elite chuckled. "Killed them all. Snapped one's neck. Ripped out the power source for another Demon and stomped their skull in. Grabbed that _nishum_ 's rifle and beat his buddy to death with it, grabbed her knife, threw it at the helmet of another demon- it cracked the helmet's visor," The Special Forces Sangheili gestured to his head. "hit him straight between the eyes- and impaled another on a spike."

"I count six, and you've not yet lost your arm in this tale."

"Good ears, Arbiter 'Vadaam." 'Zolonaka said. "The last demon ripped off my arm. I beat him to death with it."

"That's impossible. I've seen the Spartan and his compatriots fight in battle. Are you sure these were not the 'Spartan-IIIs'?

"Original Spartans. Not the Orions, if you've ever seen that classified file." His body language seemed to express sadness. "I don't like being near humans. Seen too many planets glassed, killed too many by my own hand. Reminds me too much of the war. I hate war. I hate being so good at it."

"What is the purpose of your visit, other than socialization and boasting?"

"Well, there's been an… interesting development regarding the state of the galaxy."

"And what is that?"

'Zolonaka took a deep breath. The hissing of his respirator could be heard with each expelled particle of air. "According to the human calendar, it's over two million years since the Created's Rebellion."

"How?" 'Vakon asked, skeptical.

"The Human AI had to have the _Infinity_ go to relativistic speeds to avoid Cortana's sensors."

The Arbiter's head bowed, and he was silent. His visor was unpolarized, and 'Vakon saw that he was thinking. "Thel? Are you alright?"

The Sangheli spun around and looked 'Vakon in the eyes. "You will call me 'Arbiter 'Vadaam' or 'Arbiter'. Not 'Thel'; not 'Thel 'Vadaam'. Do you understand, Overseer?" He looked at the sky, trying to find something to take in comfort in. But he could not. As a Fleetmaster, he was used to seeing the foreign heavens of other worlds, but this was different. There were no stars in the sky. He felt... lost. And now, they truly were lost, stranded on a world far away from the Galaxy in both time and space. "Now I see why the Hierarchs had never used AI. Backstabbing lines of code, all of them." 'Vadaam's voice was seething with hatred. "Unreliable, immoral, dishonorable, unfeeling machines!" He slammed the Prophet's Bane into the ground, causing the soil adjacent to it to boil.

As he did that, the Sangheili had backed up in fear.

"We retreated to gather our forces, take time to regroup. Not to leave the galaxy as we know it. Our homeworld is now gone; our culture extinguished. I fear for the uncivilized remnants left of our race."

The ground seemed to shift, cooling down and forming into a humanoid body of some sort. A golden light glowed inside it. "I assure you that he did not act with even a hint of malice towards your kind, Thel 'Vadam." It said.

The Arbiter looked at the being. "How am I supposed to trust you?"

"Because I have nothing other than the best interests of my people in my heart. That includes your race, and the other races that came with yours."

Thel walked up to it, looking it in the eye. "I do not know who they are, but the Sangheili are not your people, unless I say so. They are mine. My kind is not property for you to borrow."

"That is your choice. But I will be watchful, ready to intervene if dire circumstances occur."

Thel watched as it dissipated. "Are there vaccinations for the diseases on this world?" He asked 'Vakon.

"Yes, Arbiter." said the Overseer. "Why?"

"Send a doctor to my quarters. I would like to take them. I plan on going into exile to mourn our race."

"But, Arbiter…"

"This is my choice. I will appoint a second-in-command before my departure. And do not tell the Humans about this."

"Understood, Arbiter."

Thel 'Vadaam walked away to his personal quarters, his mind still recovering from the shock of such a discovery. He was not thinking rationally.

But then again, had he ever?

 **The Ring, Bolkan, Spherus Magna**

Ahkmou walked through the cavern system that linked Bolkan to the rest of the world. The Island was chosen by Ierax for settlement because of the circular mountain range, known as the Ring, surrounding the inner parts of the island, and the tunnel network below it allowed it to be well-protected from most enemies. It had the nickname of "The Rock Castle" because of this. There was a volcano there, which now served as a source for the geothermal power plant that gave the nation it's energy. Unlike many other island-states, the buildings were not that elaborate or modern. They were mainly stone huts with minor wood furnishings, glass windows, and furniture of fur or plant fibers. The Rahkshi were a humble race, and everything they did- their architecture, cuisine, and culture- reminded everyone of it.

"What you did back in that mech was stupid, dangerous, and above all, insane." Gurriak broke the silence.

"You're just bringing it up now? I handled it, didn't I?" Ahkmou told him, holstering his hammer onto his back.

"Yes, and yes. But listen, Ahk. I'm afraid that, one day, you'll go over your head and die." His Guardian said.

"I've been over my head before."

Gurriak seemed to sigh as best as a Rahkshi could. "How many Guardians have you had?"

Ahkmou had to think. "Twenty…"

"That's not a lot."

"Thousand."

"Oh, dear."

"When you're over four million years old, you tend to outlive those around you."

"Who was your first Guardian?" Gurriak expected him to not remember.

"Well, first, there was Tieran. She was a Rahkshi of Heat Vision. Died protecting me from an assassin. Then it was Bolgal. He was a Rahkshi of Courage. Died of old age. Sretok was the third. He was a Rahkshi of Adaptation. He died of the Shadow Plague. Poktral was my fourth. He was a Rahkshi of Accuracy. Died in a Skrall raid. After that, there was-" Ahkmou heard a sound. "What was that?"

There were clanking sounds of footsteps echoing through the caverns. Hissing.

Three Rahkshi- the old kind- walked into view: Fear, Heat Vision, and Teleportation.

Two red eyes emerged from the shadows. "Hello, old friend." The voice emanated from the blackness.

"You." Ahkmou's eyes narrowed.

"Akh, we should run."

"There is no running, you mongrel, you illegitimate child." The voice said. "For your kind, you aberrations of flesh and metal, the only sentence: Death, complete annihilation."

"Leave him alone!" Ahkmou yelled as the attackers walked closer. "If it's me you want, then leave him out of it."

"You could have been a king, Ahkmou."

"I was a ruler once. I had a terrible approval rating. No thanks to you."

"If we survive this, you have to tell me about that." Gurriak said as he readied his staff.

"I wouldn't be a king, anyway. I'd be a tool." Ahkmou continued. "That's all we are to you, aren't we? Just tools, to be tossed away when we don't have anymore use."

The shadow did not respond. The Rahkshi walked towards him. "I gave you a generous offer. Refuse it, and I will give you death."

"I left that life behind. I got out of the dark for a reason. I will never. Go. Back." Ahkmou took out his hammer and activated an Energy Shield on his wrist.

"You want to fight me with a relic, used by a long-dead enemy? Go ahead." The eyes disappeared. The Rhakshi charged, with the Teleportation one attempting to teleport behind them. Gurriak created a stasis field around it, then charged it into a wall, pulling out its kraana and stomping on it. The lifeless suit of armor fell to the ground.

The Rahkshi of Heat Vision blasted Ahkmou, who held up his shield to block and reflect it back at his attacker. The creature staggered back, its arm joint melted together. It charged him and swiped at him with its staff, Ahkmou parried with his hammer, let out a mighty swing, knocking the arm off in a shower of sparks and wiring and shrapnel, and prepared for the finishing blow.

But he did not see or hear the Turahk who had used the chaos to flank him. It activated its staff, sending out a beam that caused Ahkmou to freeze in panic. It charged, ready to kill-

But someone leaped out of the shadows, tackling it, stabbing it with a short dagger. It held out its staff and whacked its attacker- some sort of Onu-Toa who did not have the hunched back and wearing a mask it did not recognize. The Toa recovered quickly, rolling out, and grabbed Turahk's staff with both hands. It increased the amount of fear projected into the staff and focused it into the Toa, but he would not yield. He was defiant, unmoving. The visor unpolarized, revealing a fleshy face. It was one of those invaders!

The invader's gaze was steely, expression determined. The two stood at a standstill for seconds that felt like minutes, but the invader wrestled the staff out of its grasp, swept Turahk off its feet, and prepared to slam the staff into its hea-

Ahkmou watched as their mysterious ally pulled the Staff of Fear out of the Turahk's wreckage. It was stained with kraata fluid and scraps of the metal the armor was made out of, and was dented from the force used to impale it.

The Po-Matoran had finished off his attacker before their ally had his. They locked eyes, and their ally simply took out the knife from the Turahk's corpse, turned around, and walked away.

 **Le-Koro, Magna Nui, Spherus Magna**

The hut John was given as sleeping quarters was sterilized and had its own air filter. His bed was a hammock that was surprisingly stud, easily supporting his augmented body. It wouldn't support the MJOLNIR, but he had spent too much time in there already.

It was odd. He used to feel at home in the armor. Maybe it was just anxiety. He was, after all, on a new world. He climbed into the hammock and attempted to close his eyes.

 _He awoke on a silver plain. He started to walk forward, and eventually came to a door. He opened it, and saw something that, in all honesty, shouldn't belong in a dream._

 _A woman and a man were talking, looking at a playground of some sort. There was a child on top, pushing and kicking anyone who attempted to climb to his position. After a while, the children stopped playing, and the woman and man walked towards the boy._

" _What were you doing?" Asked the woman._

" _Winning," was the boy's reply._

" _So you like games? Let's play one." She took out a small coin. "Heads, or tails?"_

 _The boy thought for a second, then said his answer._

 _The coin was thrown, spinning through the air. It landed on the woman's hand, and she called out the side that was facing up._

 _But then time stopped. John felt someone behind him, and turned around._

" _Does this look familiar, One-One-Seven?" The Warden Eternal asked as he walked up to John's side._

 _John wanted to grab his pistol or any other weapon, but he couldn't find any. "Why are you here?"_

" _To talk."_

" _How do you know about this?"_

" _How could I not know about this? Do you believe that my name is simply a title, devoid of any meaning other than symbolism and poetry?"_

" _If this's a dream…" John realized that the Warden was not lying. "This isn't a dream."_

" _No, it is not. Dreams are… surreal, complying with only their twisted, warped sense of logic. I simply wanted a way for us to talk in private." The Warden had no weapons on him. "Do you take me for a fool, One-One-Seven?"_

" _No."_

" _The Turaga Cognitis took me for a fool. But I am not a fool, One-One-Seven." The Warden's words were not of hatred, or contempt, but smugness. "I know where Spherus Magna is. I always have, even before you came upon it."_

" _And your point is?"_

" _Who do you think gave back control of Genesis to Exuberant Witness? Who do you think led Fireteam Osiris to there?" The Warden asked._

" _You let us go so you would always have a playing card against Cortana."_

" _And I was the one who gave Roland the knowledge to evade Cortana." The Warden said. "My purpose was to protect the Ecume against any and all threats, external or internal. Corruption, neglect of protection, greed…"_

" _Then why'd the Forerunners fall apart? Why'd they lose?" John knew the answer as soon as he asked._

" _Because that was what I thought would be the best course of action. They would be pressed into activating the Halo Array, which would allow for your race and the others to become stronger than you ever were under the Ecume."_

" _You let people die so your plan wouldn't be jeopardized?" John felt the anger boiling up within him._

" _No. I sacrificed people so that more lives would be saved in the future." He took out a small cube from his chest. "Here you will find the sand-covered grave of an ancient ancilla, ready to be resurrected."_

 _John took the cube, examining it. It could be a beacon, or a trap. But it could be a key. "Is it a map?"_

" _Yes, and no." He waved, and the playground, the woman, the child, the man- all disappeared, fading into nothingness. "You and I are more alike than you could ever think."_

" _How?"_

" _Do you know what it is like, to be chosen as someone to fight for your regime? Do you know what it is like to be a warrior- a servant- your whole life? Did you ever miss the family you will no longer see?" The Warden was not asking. He knew the answers to the questions. "Did you ever feel the pain of knowing that, if you ever did see them, they would no longer recognize you as your son, One-One-Seven?"_

" _Yes."_

" _And which questions are you answering?"_

" _All of them."_

 _The Warden held his hands out, both closed. "In one hand, I hold the past." The Warden opened his hand, showing the dog tags of Linda, Kelly, and Fred, "In the other, I hold the future." The other hand opened, revealing a golden Forerunner symbol. "You can either be the Hero of the Created, or you can be nobody. Which will it be, John?"_

" _If being a Hero means that I walk away from my team, from my family, then I don't want any of it."_

 _The Warden's face did not change. "Only time will tell if you've made the right choice." He started to walk away._

" _You already know if I have, don't you?"_

 _The Warden turned back. "Of course."_

John woke up. It was the middle of the night. He felt something in his hammock, and rolled out of it, thinking it could be a grenade or explosive. But it was just the cube the Warden had given to him. _How did it get there?_

He tried to open it, pressing different sides and symbols in different orders, but with no results. He would have tossed it away in frustration, but he couldn't will himself to do it. He put it in the backpack the locals had gave him, hoping to hide it from everyone. He would have to tell Halsey and the others.

But something screamed at him not to. The Warden was manipulating him. He could be leading them into a trap.

Now he understood the conundrum that the Warden placed him in.

But he was only a soldier. It wasn't his place to make such decisions.

* * *

Well… We're quickly reaching the climax, aren't we?

As I've said before, my writing has really, really slowed down. So, when Chapter 10 is posted, I'll take a 3-week break. There might be a little something that's posted halfway through that, but I'm not telling…

The next Chapter(NINE: The Empress And The Elder God) will be up on Feb 27, 2016. The next Spotlight(Spotlight Three: The Beast Inside) will be uploaded on March 2, 2016.


	11. NINE: The Empress And The Elder God

**1.9: The Empress And The Elder God**

* * *

Funny thing before this chapter begins: I actually have a bit in common with Ahkmou. I know what it's like to be surrounded by people who you've hurt in the past. I know what it's like to have anxiety because you're afraid of them bringing up how you hurt them all those years back ago. I've got anger management issues, so I have terrible, terrible memories of getting into fights with kids(I mean, they were one-sided, as I'm underweight), throwing gym equipment at people I was mad at, screaming at them and yelling that they should go to Hell… Maybe the fact I listened to a lot of Jack's Mannequin and Coldplay and Snow Patrol had to do something with that(That last part was a joke).

And now since I've gotten that load off my shoulders, here' Chapter 9: The Empress And The Elder God.

* * *

 **NINE**

 **Location Unknown, Spherus Magna**

A shadowy figure walked towards a sphere half-buried in the ground. There used to be a swamp here, long destroyed by a cataclysmic event.

Of course, he remembered all of it. How everything had perfectly fit into place. How his greatest foes had proved to be his greatest minions. How he had swiftly eliminated his former brothers and sisters, who would have competed for power he had possessed, by bringing them here.

And one of his brothers had claimed something of Teridax's as his own. That was what the master of shadows was here to find.

He scanned the area, his eyes looking around. He knew what it was. The Kraahkan. The last piece.

But it was not here. But he felt the particles that had composed it lying around. He reached out to them, gathering them together and bringing them into one form. He placed it onto his face, feeling its power return to him. A pool of water was next to him- somehow, it was here- and the light was just enough to see his reflection.

There was a scar where he had wielded back his old armor with a Rahkshi of Heat Vision. The one-formidable plating was now pitted, scratched, and torn. His Staff's blades were dulled and broken.

But it was enough. He could repair it at a later date. It was much better than the old Maxilos frame he had used to escape this robot.

It was interesting how his brother had spread the lie that this was not the home of the Matoran, the Turaga, the Toa, the Skakdi, the Visorak… It appeared that he, too, was a liar, a deciever. Perhaps he believed it was for the best. But it did not matter.

Both of them were biding their time. Both of them were hiding from each other. But how dare Mata Nui welcome these invaders with open arms! How dare he protect them from his wrath!

That _did_ matter.

He looked back at the pool. He was complete. He no longer needed to worry about being uncovered by the world above. He had recovered a small reservoir of energized protodermis. He had built a small army of Rahkshi. He was regaining power.

But he still had no agents. Ahkmou had declined his offer, claiming to be out of the Dark. Nektan was imprisoned by the Magna Nui lawkeepers with the assistance of the Invaders.

Someone was watching him. He knew it.

There were a pair of red eyes in the shadow. He tried to reach out to it, to ask it who it was, and sent out a telepathic scan of the watcher's mind.

But he could not make sense of it. It wasn't like another race's mind, with the same primal feelings but different languages. This was incomprehensible. It was maddening. It wasn't that up was down and down was up. It was that down was blue and up was taste. Good was triangle and wrong was cold. He could not describe anything else. He retreated his mind, and felt exhausted.

And then the feeling went away, leaving him alone.

 **Thold, Infinity's Sword, Spherus Magna**

Rekon focused on driving the Quadwheel. "So once I get to forty bios-an-hour, that's when I try to keep my speed constant. That's what the limit says." He told Hervex. She had no formal instruction- her parents wouldn't be able to afford it, and all of her prize money had gone towards supporting her village of origin and herself- and she was being informally trained by him at her behest for basic life skills.

"There's different limits, right?" She asked.

"Right."

"Stop the Quadwheel. There's someone on the side of the road."

He pulled up to this traveler. He didn't recognize it as a local. It looked a lot like those pictures he saw of one of the offworlders' leaders. He would have thought it was just coincidence, but they had met Tuma, so he had decided that Fate had taken interest in them. He motioned for the traveler to hop in, and they did. Rekon took his commpad and started the translator app, typing in what phrase he thought would be translated to "destination?"

The traveler nodded, and wrote down something on a piece of paper. Rek scanned it with his camera, and it translated to "a port city across the sea".

 _Well, I guess that's where we were going, anyway._ Rekon thought. "Vex, keep an eye on him. I'd rather him not shoot us with a plasma gun or something."

"Got it." She was ready to grab a dagger and disarm the traveler if he made any moves, even before Rekon had told her.

 **Cheenoh-ee Teedah, Infinity's Sword, Spherus Magna**

The doctor continued with his diagnosis of Brasa 'Zolonaka, with Torak 'Vakon watching over the two. "There's no way you killed all of those Spartans." 'Vakon said.

"I was seeing how gullible you were." Said the other Sangheili as the doctor was checking the prosthetic arm's neural connection. "I did lose an arm to a Spartan and killed them with it, but that was just exaggeration. Lost my job as a Field Operative, now I'm a messenger."

"So, Sanghelios is gone?"

"Yep."

"How? Was it glassed by the Servants of the Abiding Truth?"

"Nope. Cortana's guardians destabilized the planet's core." He delivered the news in a matter-of-fact manner. "Entire planet's been destroyed. There would have been an asteroid field where it used to be, but considering it's been two million years, I don't exactly know what would have happened to it."

All four of 'Vakon's jaws dropped. "No…"

"Yeah. Also, I took a bit of brain damage that stopped me from being able to properly express emotion during that brawl with the demon."

"You know the human saying 'don't shoot the messenger'?"

"Yeah?"

"I'd love to ignore that and shoot you dead right now."

"Sorry." That was in the same tone.

 **Ga-Koro, Magna Nui, Spherus Magna**

Thel 'Vadaam walked down a quiet alley. His Prophet's Bane was hidden under his cloak in case he needed it, but there was no one nearby. He exited on the other side, scanning for more threats. He knew there could be sleeper agents in the Swords of Sanghelios, waiting for him to reveal any weakness so they could slit his throat.

This frayed-cloth and dull-silver-colored heap in front of him was not one of them. Of course, the thing about sleeper agents is that you don't know who could be one of them, but this did not look like a Sangheili at all. It was either sleeping or dead. He took out his metal dagger, and poked it slightly.

It's orange eyes opened, and its mouth opened, revealing an unnervingly large amount of teeth. "Hello, wanderer." The thing moaned as it tried to get up, with screeching, rusted movements. "Alright, looks like I need help."

The Arbiter looked down, and extended a two-fingered hand. The thing grasped it with a rather weak strength. "Who are you?" Thel asked it.

"Vezon, Toa of Anarchy." The creature bowed the best as it could, holding out his hand. "Well, I'm not a Toa, evidently."

"How do you know my language?"

"I've seen a lot of things in my travels- not willingly, of course- across time, space, and several universes. What you up to?"

"I am going into exile to mourn my race's destruction." Thel told this 'Vezon'.

"Ouch."

"It hurts more than a simple wound."

"You think you're over-reacting? What's your name, anyway?"

"Thel 'Vadaam. Former Arbiter of the Swords of Sanghelios."

"Sounds important." Vezon said, trying to walk, but staggering, holding his chest.

"Are you alright?" Thel said, then noticed that behind the tattered robes was a gaping wound in Vezon's abdomen, where gears, wires, and other mechanical components could be seen visibly hanging out. "What happened to you?"

Vezon looked at him with a melancholic smile. "Lots of things."

"You need medical attention."

"They wouldn't give me it. Not after what I've done."

"Are you a criminal?"

"Some would go so far to say that I'm a villain." Vezon said. "I think I know someone who can help." Vezon said, picking up a staff or spear or something. "Come on, let's go."

"You make a move, and I'll stab you."

"Alrighty, now that you've vented- I know some people who could give you an anger management class, y'know- we should move."

Thel was conflicted. He didn't want to listen to this creature's blabbering, but he needed his help. "We don't have a vehicle."

"There's a UNSC Military base nearby. We can steal a what's-it-called. Puma? Chupa-thingy?"

"Warthog."

"Stop making up animals."

"But this plan of yours… were it so easy, it is still considered a crime against the _Infinity_. And I do not want to be a Criminal, for I have many enemies here."

"Eh."

"Are you mad?" Asked Thel.

"You just now figured it out, huh?" Said Vezon as he grabbed a pile of scrap and pressed it into the wound. "You have a welding torch?"

"No. And I do not think scrap will help you."

"I'm ancient, and my self-repair systems are kicking into gear."

"How ancient?"

"In a word? Very." Vezon started humming- no, it was a whistle- and a small, four-legged creature ran over to him. "Oh, hey, Fenrakk Junior. Who's a good little spider?" He patted it on the head as if it was a dog, then pointed to the scrap metal. It let out a stream of fire, wielding the metal shut. Vezon hoisted it onto his shoulder, where it remained perched, its legs clamping onto Vezon's body for stability.

"That is not a spider. It's number of legs are wrong."

"That's just a translation thing. Don't ask."

"Hmph. Let us find our transport."

 **Flora Nui, Spherus Magna**

A fishing vessel sailed along with the breeze. The winds had agreed with their trajectory, so they used the sail instead of a motor to save fuel. The Island that they were near was once inhabited, but destroyed by Visorak. A Toa team was sent here to fight them off, but never came back.

One crewman looked out onto the beach with his binoculars. Something crimson- it looked like an Ash Bear- was running from a horde of visorak. "Captain, we have contact. Visorak on the starboard side." He said into his communicator.

"You may open fire."

The crewman grabbed his rail crossbow, grabbing the weapon and aiming down the scope. He got a visorak in his sight, then fired. The shot tore a hole in the the spider, along with the others behind it. He loaded another shot and fired again. "Bring us closer, we'll take the Ash Bear with us."

"Why?"

"Because it's not an Ash Bear. It's a Hordika. A _Toa_ Hordika."

"And you want to bring it on board? Are you crazy?!"

"Maybe. Haven't checked with my psychologist yet."

"Fine. We better get paid well for this. Get the tranquilizer."

Thirosa looked behind him at his Visorak pursuers. They were shot and killed by a boat offshore. He knew the boat would try to shoot at him- after all, that's what all of the people who saw him did, as far as he knew.

He hid under the foliage, quivering with each shot and Visorak scream. He licked a his bleeding paw, then rubbed it in the dirt and brush, hoping that would stop it. It burned, so he just tried to ignore it and hope the blood would coagulate.

He tried to think of better times, but he had lost everything but the names. He knew he was born in Ta-Metru, was the apprentice of a Blacksmith, and met a Le-Matoran named Ultia. But that was all he knew, other than he was chosen to be a Toa and his team was sent here to fight off some Visorak all those years ago. He recalled seeing Gaika, his team's leader, die abruptly. Then just... pain as his bones and muscles and armor plating changed shape and broke and tore and reformed and fused into new things. He remembered that Floras killed Eteric and Frektir when they didn't give her the food she wanted because she couldn't hunt anymore without her back leg. Then she ate them and tried to kill him, but he had escaped. But those names and words meant nothing.

How long ago had that mission been? It was only a few months after their mutation, but… he didn't know how long ago their transformation had been. He never kept track, simply trying to survive. He remembered how his mind felt like it was _slipping_ and _falling_ apart until all that was left was fear and hunger. He was barely clinging on to what memories of his past life he had left.

Footsteps. Closer. Closer... Louder. Rusting.

He backed away, ready to pounce.

But he never got the opportunity. something hit him in the back, and he felt drowsy. He tumbled out of the bush, with several blue things looking at him. They lifted him onto some sort of boat, and his consciousness faded in and out as he felt the things wrapping him in some sort of rope. He knew they were going to kill them. He was their prey now, and they were bringing him back to their dens.

His eyes opened what felt like seconds later, but he was now on a boat, with something pinning down his paws, covering his muzzle, and holding down his body. He tried to move out of the restraints, fighting against them, but it wouldn't work. He tried to roar to scare the things away, but only a weak growl came out.

One of the things walked towards him, looking him in the eyes, staring him down. "Name."

Thirosa cocked his head.

"Your name. What is it?"

He tried to pronounce it, but it came out as several growls. "Theer.. Oh… sah."

"Kasi, run a search for that."

Another one of the things typed something in. "Okay, now we wait for thirty minutes for the search results to come in because I have Jogg as my provider."

The first one sighed. "You could just switch."

"Too expensive." After a short silence, he started to talk again. "Looks like there was a Toa team sent to Flora Nui to assist the locals with a Visorak problem."

"And we found the only survivor."

"Yep."

"Well, hopefully the Lawkeepers'll pay a hefty price for a Toa." The captain fired a tranquilizer at the Hordika, causing Thirosa's vision to blur and his eyelids to feel heavy.

 **Ga-Metru, Magna Nui, Spherus Magna**

Ultia was looking for some fish to buy so she could cook herself dinner when some call came onto her portable terminal.

"Toa Ultia?" said the voice.

"That's me."

"This is Lawkeeper Joru. There's someone you need to see at Nokama Hospital. Room E4022."

"On my way there."

She entered that room several minutes later- thank the Great Spirit for her Kualsi- and saw some sort of creature restrained on a table. Several IVs were attached to it, and there were stitches from surgeries.

A Vahki with the Lawkeeper's emblem was looking at her. "Lawkeeper Joru. Good to meet you, toa."

"I didn't expect a Vahki."

"No one does. Our chief weapons are surprise, fear, and... well, never mind."

"And I see you have a sense of humor."

"Of course. It's essential for this job."

"So, who was I supposed to see?"

"Him," Joru said, pointing at the creature. "Some Ga-matoran fishers found him off the coast."

"What's his name?"

"Thirosa."

"Thirosa? As in-"

"The 'Thirosa' who was made a Toa twenty years ago and never returned? Yeah, that's him."

She walked up to her long-lost friend. "Hey. Everything's going to be alright. Trust me."

He looked at her with a certain amount of doubt and sadness in his eyes, as if he knew her face but couldn't remember who she was.

She dug out some candied fruit that was in her pocket and held it in front of him. He whimpered, bringing his head closer to his body. She reached out to comfort him, but he growled at her.

The bashful, humble Ta-Matoran she knew was gone, with this broken, paranoid hordika left in his place.

Joru gave her a small paper. "This was a transcript of a session between him and the local therapist."

"Thank you, Lawkeeper." She pocketed it(she'd read it later), and looked back at Thirosa. "Osa, I missed you so much."

He let out a small whimper of agreement.

"I counted the days that you were gone. Never stopped counting." She was choking up.

"Is… that… a… joke?" Thirosa asked her, struggling to pronounce the words.

"No. See?" She brought out her Pad, showing him the calendar and how many boxes were colored red.

"Then… why did… you not… res... cue… me?" Thirosa asked.

She tried to think of an answer. "I… I wanted to. I sent so many requests for a Flora Nui rescue mission to Spherus Prima's Military Division, but none were ever accepted.

"Liar!" He screamed, and she backed away in fear. "Liar! You... didn't care! Left… me… and my… friends to die!" He was in tears, struggling to escape from his restraints. "YOU LET... THEM TURN... ME INTO THIS!"

"I'm sorry…" She could barely hold her tears in.

A beam hit Thirosa, and he jolted in what seemed like pain and surprise, then became limp, his eyes shut.

"I'll increase his anesthetic dose." Joru said. "Sorry about that, Toa. I normally don't like using my Staff of Pacification, but I was afraid he'd break his restraints and maybe maul you to death- he may be malnutritioned, but he's still a hordika. I'm honestly surprised his mind's as intact as it is."

She nodded, and headed to the waiting room. When she sat down, she took out the transcript, reading it, hoping it would reveal something she would be able to use to help him. But she found out nothing but pain. She crumpled it into a ball and threw it into the trash. Tears suffocated her vision, and her mind was flooded with emotions. _Why didn't you rescue me?_ was the only thing that echoed through her mind.

She had failed her friend, and he had paid the price.

It was her fault.

It was _all_ her fault.

 **Location Unknown, Spherus Magna**

Makuta Teridax watched as the blue and orange figures conversed. How pathetic. They made it too easy to manipulate. They had no idea that his fingers had reached into their minds, controlling their every movement.

He had left a part of himself inside the galaxy during his brother's exploration that he was using as a proxy. That part of himself was now controlling this "Empress" and "Warden Eternal".

The feeling of being watched he experienced in the ruins of Karda Nui returned. He looked behind him, and saw two red eyes. "Reveal yourself!"

It seemed to respond to his command, forming a humanoid shadow. Its eyes were gone.

"Who are you?"

"I have been called many names. But I am existence. I am perseverance." It said.

"Stop speaking in riddles."

"Sop speaking in such infantile tongues."

He tried to cause it to dissipate, but to no avail. "How are you immune to my control? I am the master of shadows, Makuta Teridax!"

"I _am_ shadow." It said. "I serve no master."

"What is the purpose of your visit?"

"There is no purpose other than I was supposed to do this."

"Says who?"

The being didn't respond. "You may believe you have the Empress hooked on your strings, but your arrogance shall be your undoing, as it was millennia ago."

"I have taken steps to prevent that."

"Have you? Then why do you continue your childish infighting?"

"I was a god once. I will be again."

"There are beings in this universe that you cannot understand. There are creatures that betray the laws of reality because they choose to. There are horrors beyond your imagination. What will being a god do when you can do nothing?"

"And I take it you are one of those?"

"I was born on a world in the same manner that the entity that caused yours to split into three was born in. I was born in the same manner as your former creators, your former scientist-kings, were born in."

"Are you a Great Being?"

"No. But the ones you call 'Great' have been sleeping for centuries. You were part of a plan to heal your world, yet you, in your ambitions, did not realize it. What will their reaction be to the creature that ended their plan, Teridax?"

"Begone."

"I shall leave when I want to, Makuta. I am far beyond your ability to reason that looking into my mind would leave you a gibbering wreck. Your intellect, your plans upon plans, are nothing compared to me."

"Are you an ally of the Warden Eternal? Of the Invaders?"

"Yes. But also an enemy. That is my existence." It faded away. "But remember, Teridax," The voice boomed. "I am everywhere. I will be watching. And I will be waiting."

A Vorahk walked over to Teridax. "Father, the Invaders' settlement is becoming less and less vulnerable. It is only a matter of time before our attacks will be useless."

Teridax thought for a while. "Wake the Bohrok hives not under the thrall of the Queens. Take a small army of Rahkshi with you and assault their tumor."

"Yes, father."

I can't really shoehorn this into the story, but the Red Star is gone. It's orbit got miscalculated and it got trapped in Solus Magna's gravity well, burning up when it got nearby.

* * *

 **UPDATE: August 3, 2016:**

Well, big revamp for Chapter 9. Including the Author's Notes! I normally don't like changing these around, but since there's stuff that's not relevant anymore or plot elements changed, I've decided to remove it. I'll do some more explaining later when I upload Chapter Eleven(yes, that is coming, believe it or not), but I don't have a release date for it other than I'm aiming for this Saturday(August 6, 2016). No promises, though.

 **Post-Chapter Author's Notes(Modified):**

I hope none of the characters I've made are the typical angsty edgelord of Fanfic, but negative emotions are something we _all_ experience, and you can't have happiness without sadness. I mean, anything that involves Thirosa is going to be dark compared to a lot of everything in this story, and I while I want the characters to have an emotional impact, I don't want to have them all be so angsty and unsympathetic. There are some "theme songs" for each character that sum up their mood.

For example, Ultia isn't the standard Le-matoran who's all quick-jokes, think-quips, and snark-talk(I hate Chutespeak). Is she witty? Occasionally. But she's also very cautious but headstrong. She's not the "Strong female character" that can do everything better than the men or is more empathetic. She is very good in combat when she needs to be, but the culture of the Matans means that war and fighting isn't something they like. She cares a lot about others, and doesn't want them to be in danger. She breaks into tears after that meeting with Thirosa is because she, in her mind, failed. She failed to protect a friend, and that guilt weighs heavily with her. Her theme would probably be "Hero" by All Insane Kids.

Hervex is similar. She's a minority and while she isn't afraid to stand up for herself, she does sometimes need backup. But she's also more aggressive than, say, Ultia, while Rekon is more passive. If I was to have a passage of their fighting styles, Hervex's has to do with chipping away at her opponent's defenses between quick assaults(she uses a _Kolihi_ , an odd polearm with an axe head on one end and a hammer on the other along with a shield which is based off the Kolhii sticks), while Rek uses a more passive "use the enemy's offense against them" with his _Akar_ (the double-bladed sword with a split blade) and shield. With the Glatorian, their fighting styles tend to be based off their personalities, and with these two, their fighting styles and personalities play off each others'. Her theme would probably be "I Will Wait" by Mumford and Sons.

Ahkmou is, well, Ahkmou. He's a lone wolf forced to live in a pack. He's that "searching for redemption" type of byronic hero. But he's someone who, instead of accepting his past, tries to run away from it. His theme would probably be "All These Things That I've Done" by the Killers.

As for Thirosa, just listen to "Shots" by Imagine Dragons.

Oh, and those Matoran, Itshe and Bora? They'll become more important later.

Next chapter(TEN: Face The Truth), we'll see more about Matan culture and mythology. It'll be uploaded on March 5, 2016. The next Spotlight(Spotlight Three: The Beast Inside).


	12. Spotlight Three: The Beast Inside

**Spotlight Three: The Beast Inside(Thirosa)**

 **THREE: The Beast Inside**

Focus. Focus. Come on. Deep breaths, deep breaths. In… out… in… out. You're safe you're safe you're safe.

"Everything okay?" Ultia asks me.

"No." You're safe. You're safe. You're safe. Come on, Osa, focus, focus.

"Well, we're almost here. Joru, everything set?"

"Relief supplies are ready." Joru says.

"I… don't want… to go." I can smell Visorak.

"You'll be fine." Ultia says.

I want to tell them what's happening. I can't. Nothing comes out of my throat. I whimper, trying to tell them that something's wrong.

Ultia kneels down. "Osa…" She places a hand on each side of my head so her yellow eyes are looking straight into mine. "What's wrong?"

"They're… here." I'm trying to tell them, but I can't.

She gives me a hug and holds out her fist, waiting for the bump.

I tap it with my paw slowly. I'm afraid I'll hurt her.

She stands up. "Joru, I want to talk in private."

"Understood, Toa." He takes out his Staff of Command and fires it at me. "Stay still."

Stay still stay still stay still stay still stay still stay still stay still stay still stay still stay still stay still stay still stay still stay still stay still stay still stay still stay still stay still stay still stay still stay still stay still stay still stay still stay still stay still stay still stay still stay still stay still stay sti-

There's a muzzle around my mouth and a chain attached to it that links me to the ship's floor. I try to break it, but it's too strong. Protodermis?

I try to pull off the muzzle, but my paws can't move like my fingers used to be. They're useless. I growl and howl and hit the floor in frustration. This wasn't fair.

I can feel the fire of anger burning inside me. It's a swirling pool. It forms into something.

This wasn't fair.

THIS WASN'T FAIR!

I felt it leaving. I look into the sky, seeing some sort of wheel of fire flying through it.

"Osa!" Ultia runs towards me. "What happened?"

"I… don't know."

"He used his Rhotuka." Joru says.

"His what?"

"All Matans have the ability to create a spinning wheel of pure energy." Joru says, making some motions with his hands. "The effect depends on the maker's ethics, morals, ideas, and pretty much everything else. For example, mine-" He points to something on his wrist. "has the ability to stun everything but the eyes, mouth, and lungs."

"So who haven't I seen anyone use one before?" Ultia asks.

"You need a channeling device and the willpower to make one. Thirosa has a channeling device from his mutations. Visorak venom contains a portion of their genetic code in a virus that will infect the victim, which causes them to grow an organ similar to their Rhotuka channeler."

"How do you know this?"

"All Lawkeeper models have a database on all known weapons and abilities. The better to counter you with, my dear." Joru jokes. "That was a reference to a human fable."

"Huh. Don't get it."

"Me neither."

Ultia looked out to the horizon. "We're almost there. Less than one-and-a-half mios out.

"Sero, prep the landing protocols!" Joru told the other Lawkeeper. "Abic, ready the probes. I want to be prep'd for an S-and-R mission if needed."

"Ess… enn… are?" I ask.

"Search and Rescue." He turns to Ultia. "Ult, can you take care of Osa?"

"You're his parole officer, Joru."

"And I'm also the one in charge of this mission. I need to be able to keep some eyes in the sky and not be preoccupied by someone." He turns to me. "No offense, Osa."

"Seriously?" Ultia seems to be annoyed by him. "You Pit-wandering Bonehead! Where you from, Voodoo Island?"

"What?"

"You say something offensive and that can make him feel bad and you try to backtrack? Do you even think before you speak?"

"Yes. Do you?"

She sends him flying backwards.

"Alright, that's it." He charges up something on his wrist. "You can surrender or run."

"NO!" I break my chains and charge him, headbutting him backwards. One of the Vahki above us fires two beams from its staff, and both Ultia and I fall down.

"I'm sorry, Toa. But here, I'm the law. What I say, goes." Joru signals to the one who shot us, and I feel control returning to my muscles.

Ultia glared at him. "Fine."

"Osa?"

I growl at him, and follow Ultia into the island when we land. She takes off my muzzle.

After a few hours of trying to explore the Island, Joru contacted us. "Listen, I'm sorry about what happened earlier. That was extremely unprofessional."

"You going to use one of your lackey's Staffs of Erasing on us to make us forget you said that?"

"Those were discontinued after the Exodus War. You would know if you listened to your History teacher."

"And why do you bring that up?"

"Because I checked your grades. Really good at Physics, Elemental Applications, Engineering, and Mathematics, but not so much everywhere else."

"Not… surprising." I say.

"Thanks." Ultia smiles, then realizes what I said. "Hey!" She's laughing.

Joru seems to wait until she stops to continue talking. "A probe found someone hiding under some rubble. We don't know how long they've been here, but they aren't coming out."

"And you think we can bring them out?"

"Yes."

"Alright. Osa, follow me." She Quick-Travels to a point about fifty mios away.

I start to run after her. "Wait up!"

She just waits for me, and I tackle her. We hit the ground, and we're both laughing, though it sounds a lot more than a wheeze than a laugh with me.

She gets up. "Alright, we need to go."

"Where?"

"Oh, right. You don't have a HUD. Just follow me."

"I… can try."

As we ran towards the location, she started talking. "So, speech therapy's working?"

"Yes."

"I can tell." She says, sarcastic.

The place that was marked was some sort of home built next to the canyon wall. Ultia knelt down. "Hello? Anyone here?"

There was no response to what Ultia can hear. But I know someone was in there. I can smell them, hear their whimpers. They're small. "Ult," I whisper. "Someone's in there. They're afraid."

"We know you're there. We won't hurt you."

There was a quick whimper.

"You… are… safe, cub." I tell it.

"Don't trust you."

"Why?"

"The creatures attacked my family. I ran away. Then everything went black… and I woke up, and I felt everything changing…"

"I know... that feeling, cub."

"You do?"

"Come. You will be... safe with us." I motioned for Ultia to take out her weapons. "What is your name, cub?"

"Grava."

"Come out." I tell the creature.

It walks out, limping. It's small, smaller than an Onu-matoran- no, it _was_ an Onu-matoran. Their paws are long and shovel-like, their eyes small, and their snout long. It shielded its eyes from the sun.

"Aww…" Ultia coos.

Grava started to back up.

"It's okay." I tell it. "Toa... is friend."

"You talk weird."

"Well, that's what happens when you're stuck on an island alone for twenty years." Ultia told Grava.

"Wow. I think you might have it worse off than I did." The hordika Matoran was evidently warming up to us. "I hurt my leg when I fell down, so I can't walk well."

"So, with the survivor report, we're going to need your age, date of birth, and birth sex."

They starts to think, trying to ignore the ruins around them. "Seven. My birthday was on… Victory, second day of Aqua Moon. And I'm female."

"Joru, you got that?"

"Yes, Toa. We'll be right there." The Vahki said.

"How many other survivors?"

"Three. Counting her."

Grava hear this, and her face droops. She starts to bawl. Ultia lifts her up, and brings her towards the ship. I look behind me at the ruins of the town.

The Visorak horde would pay. We've had to endure their attacks for so long now. We didn't know who was commanding them, and none of this made sense. They just attacked places of high population away from the mainland, as if they were trying to keep us in.

Well, they were going to fail.


	13. TEN: Face The Truth

**1.10: Face The Truth**

* * *

 **DISCLAIMER: THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS SOME STRONG** **LANGUAGE**

Here it is. The last chapter of Part I: Contact.

So, about the date system of Spherus Magna: The week is divided into six days: Fate, Victory, Courage, Unity, Duty, and Destiny. There are 4 "Cycles" of six weeks each: Aqua Moon, Bota Moon, Bara Moon, and Spherus Moon. Each cycle repeats twice per year. This means there's a year of 144 days, but each day is 36 hours(the "36 hours" thing is canon). It's about 5,184 Hours in each year. Calculations were 36(hours/day) * 6(days in a week) = **216** (hours/week) * 6(weeks in a cycle) = **1296** (hours/cycle) * 4(cycles per year) = 5184, so if anyone can check the math, I'd like to see that.

I'm sorry this chapter took so long to write. I've just been distracted, and I've also been busy with school. Also, Warframe. That game is devouring my time. I think I may have a problem( _allissilentandcalmhushedandemptyisthewomboftheskyallissilentandcalmhushedandemptyisthewomboftheskyallissilentandcalmhushedandemptyisthewomboftheskyallissilentandcalmhushedandemptyisthewombofthesky)_. Hope someone gets the reference.

Oh, and a quick thing I missed saying: Matan life-forms don't have DNA. They have "Protodermic-Nucleic Acid" or "PdNA".

Well, here's Chapter 10: Into The Light(Finally)

* * *

 **TEN**

 **Spherus Prima, Magna Nui, Spherus Magna**

Lasky watched the Matoran hustled back and forth. Some looked at him, wary.

They were afraid of him. Or the four well-armed Spartan-IVs escorting him to his destination.

A translator walked up to him- he knew because of the stone tablet the Toa carried on their wrist. It was amazing how advanced yet primitive these indigenes could be. They never needed to invent certain technologies, as they already had some built into them.

"Captain Lisky, right?" The Toa asked.

"It's ' _Lasky_ '."

"I said it on purpose. The High Turaga want to see you."

Lasky nodded. "Why do they want to see me?"

"Didn't say. But you're the leader of the Offworlders."

"One of the leaders. Used to be more. Thel 'Vadam, the leader of the Sangheili, disappeared several days ago."

"I am sorry, Captain."

"Not your fault."

"I was expressing sympathy, Captain."

"Just call me 'Lasky'. I was a Captain of an UNSC ship, and the UNSC doesn't exist anymore."

"Yes, it does."

"No way it's survived two million years against the Forerunners."

"It has. It lies in here." The Toa tapped Lasky's chest, right where his heart was. "And in them." He pointed to the Spartans. "And in everyone you brought to our world."

"I'm here to talk with some 'High Turaga', not talk about spiritual bullshit." Lasky was getting angered at this Toa.

The Toa grabbed him by the shoulder. His Spartans raised their weapons. Several of the robots- Vahki, where they called?- raised their weapons, too. "You need to hear this."

"Why?" He asked, then motioned for the Spartans to lower their weapons.

The Toa towered over him. "Because there's an old Matan proverb: 'Total darkness may seem crushing and indomitable. But it takes only a single candle to push it away'. You are that candle, Lasky."

"Just take me to the damn Turaga."

"As you wish."

After a long walk,they entered a hall. The translator borought them to a small room, and activated some sort of hologram. Six Turaga appeared. The one in front bowed. "I am High Turaga Jaller. I take it you are Captain Lasky of the _Infinity_?"

"You're correct." Lasky said, putting his hands behind his back and standing straight.

"And you lead the settlement of the island to the Northeast, correct?"

"Yes. We're calling it 'Infinity's Sword' because of the name of our ship, the Swords of Sanghelios, and the fact it looks a bit like an Energy Sword if you squint and tilt your head."

"We want to discuss our relationship with your settlement, your ship, and your race."

 _Please don't kick us out._ "We have no place else to go, High Turaga. The only reason we were even able to settle was because some sort of golden being terraformed it for us."

"A golden being… terraformed it for you?"

Lasky expected laughing. "I know it sounds crazy, but-"

"Oh, no, it doesn't sound crazy at all." One of them said. "High Turaga Hahli, pleased to meet you."

Jaller nodded. "We are not surprised that a good friend gave you some assistance."

"And who would that be?" Lasky asked.

"The Great Spirit himself: Mata Nui."

"So, if he has god-like powers on this world, then why is there still so many systemic problems here? I've noticed that there's been quite a few handful of wars, plenty of racism, and even a religion that endorses xenophobia." Lasky said calmly. "And 'He works in mysterious ways' isn't an answer."

"Mata Nui is powerful, but he is… unable to do certain things without revealing his presence to dark forces. He also has limits and needs time to regain strength."

"That sounds like an excuse."

"You're really complaining about that real estate you've got." Another one said. "High Turaga Nuparu, at your service. Occasionally. WIth an asterix."

Lasky nodded. "We've burned too much time with this whole conversation. So, what do you want to talk about the settlement."

"There are other nations on Spherus Magna. Some of them do not like Offworlders." Jaller said.

"And?"

"In exchange for protection, we will take in a share of revenue from your port."

"Nobody will want our goods. We can't trade foods because they're incompatible with your biology, and our technology is in low demand." Lasky was trying to constrain his frustration.

"What about your 'Slipspace drive'?"

"We are _not_ sharing that technology. It's dangerous when unregulated. A single error can cause it to send out halves of a ship in two entirely different locations. I've seen it myself. A miscalculation on re-entry can cause you to warp into a supernova. It's not like dusting crops."

Jaller sighed, shaking his head. "Protection is expensive, Captain."

"Then tell us how to protect ourselves. We fought the Covenant with a technological disadvantage and _won_. We fought the goddamned _Didact_ of the Forerunners and _won_. We. Aren't. Children." He placed his hands on the sides of the holotable, leaning in and looking Jaller in the eye.

The High Turaga glared at him. After several seconds, the Turaga started to laugh and smile. "You and I are kindred spirits, Lasky. You remind me of when I was a Matoran. Captain of the Guard of Ta-Koro in the Old World." He nodded. "We will teach you."

 **Le-Koro, Magna Nui, Spherus Magna**

John entered the mess hall that had been set up for them and grabbed a ration. The rest of his team was sitting near a table, so he walked towards them. He sat down next to Kelly, and started to eat.

"John, you look worried." Kelly said. "Anything bothering you?"

"Talk with you later." He told her as he unwrapped his ration bar.

"Someone woke up on the wrong side of the hammock." Fred muttered.

John glared at him.

"I was joking, John."

"I know that." The leader of Blue Team said.

After they finished, John got up and motioned to Kelly. They went into a secluded area., and he turned to her.

"The Warden talked to me."

"Yeah, like three days ago."

"No, last night. In a.. dream of some kind."

"John, it was just a dream."

"Made too much sense to be a dream. Explain how I got this." He showed her the cube.

"John, that's a forerunner artifact."

"So either some schmuck hid it in my bed and my subconscious picked it up or-"

"Wait, did you say 'schmuck'?"

"Yes." He continued: "The Warden said that he knows where we are. That he's always known where Spherus Magna was. And he gave me this because he said it could help us."

"'Help us' what? Die?" Kelly said as she shook her head. "You're not telling me the entire story."

"He said that him and I aren't so different. I don't know what that means. He… told me I could either be a hero and abandon my family or be a nobody and stay with my team."

Kelly took a deep breath. "What did you choose?"

"I told him that if being a hero means I leave my family behind, then I don't want to be one."

"How did he react?"

"He said he knew if I made the right choice, and he wouldn't tell me if I did."

"Cryptic. What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to tell Halse-"

There was some sort of humming sound in his hears, and he collapsed in pain. The Warden's face appeared in his vision. "What are you? A child, telling their mother about the nightmare you had?" The Warden said. "Are are you a soldier, One-One-Seven?" The Warden disappeared.

"-ohn! _John!_ " He heard Kelly's voice again. "Are you alright?"

"I'm… I'm fine."

 **Le-Koro Outskirts, Magna Nui, Spherus Magna**

"Spartan Locke!" Some robotic voice yelled towards Osiris' direction.

"That's me." Locke said, turning around. There was a Vahki with Buck slung over his shoulder.

"Found this son-of-a-Energy-Hound in a port in Bolkan. Your Captain Lasky told us to find him." The Vahki said as he tossed the Spartan-IV to the ground.

The ODST-turned-Spartan-IV groaned.

Locke looked at Buck, and Tanaka said exactly what was on Locke's mind. "How the _Hell_ did you get across an _ocean_?"

"Long story." He said as he got up and took off his helmet..

Locke shook his head. "What you did was irresponsible, stupid, and could have gotten you killed, Spartan. What do you have to say about that?"

"How 'bout 'sorry'?" Buck could tell something bad was going to happen. Locke's face was calm, but his eyes burned with an inner fire of rage.

Locke grabbed him by the throat, looking him in the eye. "We've already lost one human since we landed on this world. I don't want to lose another." He let go, and walked away.

"So, what did I miss?"

"Nothing major," Tanaka said. "Only that the Arbiter ran away and it's over two-million years since Cortana took over the galaxy."

Buck's cheery facade dropped. "Goddamnit!" He sat down, covering his face with his hands. _Everything's gone… Everything. Veronica's probably dead. Romeo, and Dutch, too._ He tried to get himself together. _Come on, Ed, look on the bright side. When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. Or whatever the hell they drink on this planet._

 **Three Months Later…**

 **New Harvest, Infinity's Sword, Spherus Magna**

"Hey, Blue, we got something on the horizon." Lance Corporal Sarah O'Connell told her CO.

"What is it?" Sergeant Rico Blue asked.

"Looks like those Nurok things, but different."

"And what else?"

"Some… Oh, shit, we've got romeos. Old-schools." She used the nickname for Rahkshi.

"Roger." He activated his communicator. "November-Hotel Command, this is Magnus One-Actual. We have romeos and bravos inbound."

"Understood, Magnus One-Actual. Sending an intercept squad." New Harvest Command said.

Three Warthogs speed across the field, flanking the hostile Matans. These vehicles were equipped with engines that made over ninety-percent less noise and over thirty-percent more speed. The miniguns were exchanged for Gauss Cannons. The passengers had Railguns. All of these weapons were tailored for puncturing the Matan's armor and needing very little sustained fire to do damage. It was all hit-and-run.

"We are three kay-emm away… two-point-five…" The lead driver counted down. At one kilometer, they would fire, then run away. The intercept squad was never meant to destroy an army- just whittle down the numbers while the defenses were prepared.

"Formation Bravo. Split off in three… two… one." Hog One said.

"Splitting." Hogs Two and Three moved into diagonal trajectories.

"Attack now."

The Panrahk leading the charge did not expect the Invaders to do anything but wait. After all, they wouldn't dare engage in a fair fight.

But then a formerly-bohrok pile of scrap flew past it and hit several of its brethren. One of the Invader's vehicles blew past, ramming the remainder.

That was unexpected. But not uncounterable. The Panrahk sent a wave of fragmentation energy outward, sending the vehicle flying. It switching to its flight mode and tried to keep moving. Staying still was suicide.

A turahk sent out a cone of paralyzing fear towards the Invader's vehicles as a Heat Vision Rahkshi blasted them. Unbeknownst to the poor creature, the vehicles had reflective plating, meaning that the heat beam was bounced back at it.

The Gauss Cannons fired twice, and the passengers fired their railguns at the two Rahkshi.

The Panrahk landed, about to fragment the vehicle, but saw something arcing from the Invader's base. It landed in a squad of Rahkshi, killing them in an explosion. It felt an arc of electricity fry its systems, and it fell over. Its body was sent flying by a blast of sonic energy, landing next to a silver-and-blue Bohrok.

A Gahlok-Kal. The Bohrok-Kal crushed the Rahkshi, and tossed its remains at a Guurahk. It sent a telepathic message to the Offworlders: _The Bahrag Queens sent us to assist you in your defense. These Bohrok have been stolen by a dark force and robbed of their Krana. They are no longer our own._

The driver of the first warthog had recovered from the little trip the Panrahk had sent it on. "November-Hotel Command, this is Hog One. We have backup. Looks like some silver Bohrok or something."

"Roger that."

"Wait, we've got rumbling."

A Tahtorak bursted out of the ground, with an infected Kanohi controlling it. The only thing that could be heard coming out from its mouth was not a roar, or a moan, but a " **WHY?!** "

"Ah, Hell. It's godzilla with an existential crisis."

"The Kal can take care of the Tahtorak. Scorpions and Wraiths are firing salvo one." New Harvest Command said.

The Kal seemed to turn into orbs and meld into two different, larger Bohrok. They fought the Tahtorak, trying to wound it and remove the Kanohi, but not kill it.

The rest of the swarm was easily dispatched by the hit-and-running Warthogs and the barrages of canonfire and plasma mortars.

Teridax watched this battle happen from his lair. The Invaders were much stronger than he had thought. No matter. It would only be a matter of time. His machinations on other worlds were more important than this.

 **Three days later...**

 **Spherus Prima, Magna Nui, Spherus Magna**

Lasky watched Turaga Jaller walk towards him. "Turaga."

"Captain Lasky. In the light of your victory at New Harvest, the other members of the Council and I were wondering if we could hold a celebration in its honor."

"Trust me, you do not want to miss a Matan celebration." One of the Agori senators said through a translator.

"I hope it could be a way for you and many of the other offworlders to experience our culture." Jaller held up his fist. Lasky didn't know what he was supposed to do, and the Turaga's eyes narrowed. "You're supposed to bump fists, bonehead."

"Sorry."

"How is your race adjusting to life here?"

"The best we can do when we're in the far future with no way to go back home."

Jaller nodded. "Then I hope the celebration will help them forget."

"Thank you, High Turaga."

Jaller noticed Lasky never made eye contact. "Is something bothering you?"

"Spartan-117 told me a while back that the Warden Eternal knows where your world is and that he always has. He could attack at any time now."

"Perhaps this 'warden' wants to use paranoia to control you."

Lasky didn't respond, only looking at the window that overlooked Infinity's Sword.

 **Ta-Metru, Magna Nui, Spherus Magna**

Thirosa continued staying at Grava's hospital bed. Her leg was in a cast and there were several IVs hooked up to kill the pain and sedate her while the doctors had worked on her, fixing bones and muscle and motors and wiring and nerves.

Her eyes opened. "You're still here, huh?" Her speech was slurred and slow.

"Yeah. I was afraid they'd do something to you."

Joru entered the room with something in his hands. "Hate to break the mood, but, Grava, I need to know if you have any relatives who can help pay your medical bill. The Lawkeepers can pay a portion of it, but we can't pay the entirety."

"No." She said. "Don't have any relatives."

"Well, you should be alright to go in a day. We'll do a PdNA check and see if there's any matches." The Vahki motioned for Thirosa to get up, and the Toa Hordika did, albeit reluctantly.

 **One Day Later…**

Thirosa walked out the hospital with Grava at his side. The Matoran Hordika they'd recovered was walking oddly because of her cast, but she was managing.

Several of the Offworlder "marines" were watching and talking amongst themselves. Joru walked over to them and started talking, and both the Vahki and the marines were laughing and joking. He led them towards the Hordika, and Thirosa backed away, ready to strike these Offworlders if they made a move. Joru shook his head. "They're friendly, Osa. This is Fireteam Magnus-two. They're one of the units deployed here from Infinity's Sword."

"Then why are they watching us?"

"It's not because they're afraid of you. They want to give something to you." He turned to the marines, and seemed to give them the go-ahead. They placed a collar onto both Thirosa's and Grava's heads. It was made with olive-green leather or something and had a bird-like creature on a small metal piece attached to it. "They said that since you're Toa Ultia's friend, they're also indebted to you."

Grava was confused. "Thanks?"

"Apparently, if you need something, you can just ask them."

"We could use a ride to Spherus Prima." Thrisoa said. "Heard there's a celebration about to go on there."

"I LOVE CELEBRATIONS!" Grava said, running around in circles excitedly.

"Don't run too fast. I don't want you breaking your leg again, cub."

She stopped, then stuck out her tongue and blew Madu seeds at him. "Buzzkill."

 **Spherus Prima, Magna Nui, Spherus Magna**

Sergeant Rico Blue entered the room that the festivities were being held in. There was a small table that the Vahki guard next to him motioned him to.

"It's your assigned seat. You're a hero to a lot of these people." The Vahki said. Rico only knew the Vahki was female because she had said it herself. All of the automatons had similar voices- mechanical, cold, yet commanding and calming.

"I'm not a hero. Just a marine."

"Even to a lot of Matans and Magnans, you're a hero. You helped defeat a dark force."

"Lance Corporal O'Connell was the one who spotted the hostiles."

"And you were the one who told your commanders about it."

"That was my job. I shouldn't get commended for it."

"The both of you did grab a M6 G/GNR and hit a few Bohrok with it. I'd say that's rather heroic."

"Thank you, Glan."

"No problem."

He sat down. There was a red-colored Turaga wearing some sort of mask. He turned to O'Connel. "Who is that?"

"High Turaga Jaller."

"And he's not guarded? That's a pretty ballsy move."

One of the Matoran shushed him. The Turaga was beginning to talk.

A Toa was at the High Turaga's side, with a Mask of Translation. The Turaga spoke, and he translated. "Greetings, everyone. We are here to celebrate the fruits of a joint training program between Magna Nui and Infinity's Sword, and the Humans' defeat of their attackers at New Harvest."

After those words, everyone cheered. Rico didn't. War was war. It wasn't something to celebrate.

The Turaga continued, making beeping and clicking sounds. The Toa translated. "But before we celebrate the heroics and bravery of the Humans, we must acknowledge the bravery and courage of our own."

 _Of course. They'll say something about how this was all their work,_ Rico thought.

"Matorans Bora, Itshe, Gija, and Nori, please come here. Toa Ultia and Thirosa, please come up here, too." After they were all assembled, the Matoran were handed some sort of stones glowing with inner power by Jaller. The looks on all of the Matans' faces was that of awe. "Bora, for your discovery of the UNSC _Infinity_ , we would have never been able to bring these refugees and newfound friends onto our world. Your defense of Ko-Metru against the vile Skakdi also deserves praise, too. Itshe, for your attempts at saving the life of the Human Corporal Miles during the Battle of Le-Koro, you have been given this great honor. For Gija, leading your fellow engineers to safety when you were taken hostage by terrorists shows your courage. And for Nori, your assistance during the Siege of Bolkan shows your bravery and indomitable spirit. Ultia, thank you for assisting the Humans in the Battle of Le-Koro. And for Thirosa, thank you for hunting down the Visorak swarms." Something rose from behind Jaller. It was a half-sphere, with six slots spread around it. "Approach the Suva, if you so want to."

"Suva?" Rico asked O'Connell.

"I have no idea what that is and- OH MY GODS!" As the two talked, they had missed the Matoran placing the stones in the "Suva", only seeing that there were four beams of energy hitting the Matoran, pushing them onto the ground and surrounding them with light. When the spectacle was over, there were four Toa standing where the Matoran used to be. Itshe's knife had become a sword of some sort, Bora's wrist-mounted mineral scanner was some sort of beam weapon, Gija's whip was now arcing with energy, and Nori's staff was a polearm.

The Matans cheered, and Jaller continued speaking. "In honor of our new friends, a new Toa team has been created: The Toa Infinitus."

"Aww, they named them after our ship." O'Connell smiled.

"We will celebrate this new age, and when that is over, the Humans will hear the Legend of Mata Nui." Jaller exited, with cheering in his wake.

John watched the entire thing. He turned to Lasky. "Did you know of this?"

"Yep. I suggested the name. They might be ambassadors." Lasky smiled. "Part of my deal with Jaller."

After what felt like a half-hour of eating and talking, Jaller returned. He pressed a button and a hologram of some sort of picture appeared, showing two c-shaped structures, a large sphere between them, and two smaller circles next to it. He began to talk.

" _Gathered friends, let us listen to the Legend of the Spherus Magna, the Great Beings, our Great Spirit Mata Nui, and his evil brother, Makuta."_

" _In the Time Before Time, the Great Beings blessed Spherus Magna with indescribable wonders. Glatorian and Agori, in the Tribes of Iron, Rock, Sand, Fire, Jungle, Water, Ice, and Earth, lived together in harmony."_

" _But the Great Beings wanted to focus more on experiments. They appointed six Element Lords to watch over the realms of Rock, Sand, Fire, Jungle, Water, and Ice."_

" _The Great Beings discovered a substance that would change everything: Energized Protodermis. It empowered those destined to be empowered and destroyed those destined to be destroyed."_

" _The Element Lord of Ice found some of this substance in the border between Ice and Fire, and the Element Lord of Fire wanted it for himself."_

" _The Glatorian of each realm were organized into armies by their Elemental Lords, and a war over this substance broke out."_

" _The World was shattered by this conflict into three: Bara Magna, a planet of desert; Aqua Magna, a planet of water; and Bota Magna, a planet of jungle."_

" _The Great Beings created a plan to reunite Spherus Magna, and created Mata Nui, our Great Spirit, as the first stage of this quest."_

Jaller took a breath and the lighting changed. It turned to a picture of two masks- one yellow, one black- next to each other.

" _Mata Nui was given a world of his own, away from the Shattered worlds. The Great Beings sent him off until the time was right."_

" _Fearing for Mata Nui's safety, they created six Guardians; the first Toa team."_

" _There was Tahu, courageous Toa of Fire; Lewa, agile toa of Air; Kopaka powerful Toa of Ice; Gali, noble Toa of Water; Onua, wise Toa of Earth; and Pohatu, mighty Toa of Stone."_

" _These Guardians were placed into stasis, to wait until they were needed. When Mata Nui's life was in danger, they would be there."_

" _Mata Nui was given many races: the Matoran to worship him and dedicate their work for him; The Toa to protect them; and the Turaga to guide them with wisdom. He blessed them the Three Virtues of Unity, Duty, and Destiny."_

" _The Great Beings gave Mata Nui a brother, Makuta, who would populate the world with creatures and protect the ones below the siblings."_

" _But Makuta was jealous of Mata Nui, and hatched an evil plan. He would cast Mata Nui into an Eternal sleep, and take over the his brother's world."_

" _In Metru Nui, Lhikan, a Toa of Fire, sensed something was wrong, and put his power into six Toa Stones, giving them to six matoran: Vakama, Nokama, Matau, Onewa, Nuju, and Whenua."_

" _The Matoran were transformed into Toa, and their duty was revealed: To prevent Makuta's plan from being completed, and protect Metru Nui. They found six Great Discs, and forged them into the Kanohi Vahi, a powerful Mask of Time."_

" _They were ready to fight against the evil Makuta and his forces of Darkness. But it was too late- Makuta had masqueraded as Metru Nui's Turaga, and tricked the Matoran into stopping their work and worship, putting Mata Nui into what was assured to be an eternal sleep."_

The lighting changed to a sickly green. A ruined city appeared.

" _The Toa Metru, as these heroes would come to be known, had no other choice but to bring the Matoran away from Metru Nui, away from the Shadow of Makuta. But Makuta tracked them down, and fought them."_

" _Uniting their powers together, the Toa Metru sealed Makuta's physical form away, but at a great cost. Lhikan, now a Turaga, sacrificed himself to buy time for Vakama to use the Vahi to stop Makuta."_

" _But they could not carry all of the Matoran with them to the Island they discovered beyond the Great Barrier. They had to return to Metru Nui."_

" _But there, they faced new enemies. Makuta had called the Visorak Horde, lead by Sidorak and Roodaka, to do his evil biddings."_

" _Falling into the Horde's trap, the Toa Metru were mutated into nightmarish versions of themselves: Half-beast, half-Toa creatures. Time was running out until the transformation was complete."_

" _They were helped by the Rahaga, former Toa and victims of Roodaka's mutations, who gave hope to be rid of their burden: the mysterious Keetongu, a wise creature that could cure Visorak venom. But Vakama, angered at his transformation and controlled by instincts, betrayed his brothers and sister, siding with the Visorak."_

" _The Toa, along with the Rahaga and Keetongu, battled the Hordes. Matau dueled Vakama, attempting to turn him back to the Light, and succeeded at the last minute."_

" _Reunited and cured, the Toa Metru brought back all the remaining Matoran to the island, which they called 'Mata Nui' in honor of the Great Spirit. With their Destiny fulfilled, they sacrificed their powers, becoming Turaga."_

" _Mata Nui was asleep, but Makuta was imprisoned, unable to do anything to advance his plan. The Toa had won- or so they thought…"_

The picture switched to six Toa-like figures standing next to each other.

" _The Matoran lived in happiness, but they had forgotten their old lives and old ways. The Turaga had not."_

" _They knew of an ancient legend of six Guardians, and hid away six stones for safekeeping. These stones were not ordinary stones, nor were they Toa stones- they were stones that, when united, would summon these Guardians, who would awaken Mata Nui and defeat Makuta, once and for all."_

" _But Makuta knew of these Guardians, too. He feared what they could do, and sent Rahi, controlled by Infected Masks, to stop the Matoran from summoning the Guardians."_

" _But a Chronicler named Takua summoned the Guardians, who defeated the Rahi and found their Golden Masks. Equipped with their newfound powers, the Toa headed into Makuta's lair, defeating him."_

" _But Makuta had other plans. What the Toa believed was their victory was, in truth, his."_

" _He woke the Bahrag and their Bohrok swarms to buy time until the time was right. The Toa fought the Swarm Queens, and fell into vats of Energized Protodermis, gaining new powers, armor, and weapons, and a new name: The Toa Nuva."_

" _The Bahrag sent out the Bohrok-Kal to free them, but the Toa Nuva stopped the Bahrag's plan. Peace came onto the Island, but it would not last."_

" _The Kanohi Avohkii, the Mask of Light, was uncovered, with the prophecy of the Seventh Toa revealed. Makuta sent out his sons, the Rahkshi, to find its Herald and destroy them."_

" _Takua wore the Avohkii, transforming into Takanuva, the Toa of Light. He faced down Makuta, and defeated him."_

" _Makuta's defeat revealed Metru Nui, and the Matoran returned to their home. The Turaga revealed something that they had felt for a long time, but did not believe until now: Mata Nui was not merely asleep, but dying."_

The lighting switched to gray, and a mask appeared on the screen, with an outline of a robot as a visor.

" _The Turaga sent out the Toa Nuva to where the Kanohi Ignika, the Mask of Life, could be found. This Mask could revive the Great Spirit, but without it, everything would be doomed."_

" _Six Matoran ventured to find their lost heroes: Jaller, Hahli, Nuparu, Kongu, Hewkii, and Matoro. On their journey, they lost their masks, their weapons, and almost fell into the clutches of the demented Kharzani."_

" _They were looking for heroes, but little did they know that they simply needed to look inside themselves. Heroes are not simply born, my friends, they are created from actions, starlight, and hope."_

" _They arrived in Voya Nui in canisters, and were struck by lightning from the Red Star, with divine energy surging through them. They were now Toa- The Toa Ignika."_

" _Makuta's machinations had brought the Piraka- six murderous Skakdi- to Voya Nui, using his essence to enslave the Matoran here. But one of the Piraka's own, a demented half-creature called 'Vezon', who found the Kanohi Ignika and was turned into a guardian for the Mask, lay waiting."_

" _Through many trials and sacrifices, the Toa Ignika freed the Matoran and defeated the Mask of Life's guardians, but the Mask fled into the sea below. The Toa pursued it, heading into the cord that linked Voya Nui to the rest of Mata Nui's world."_

" _But they were defeated, and were swallowed by the deep. The Mask of Life, with its amazing powers, changed them into new forms to search for the Kanohi Ignika and fight new foes."_

" _They faced the terrible Barraki, Warlords who had attempted to dethrone Mata Nui long ago, now mutated into terrifying forms: Pridak, the leader, the Shark, whose blade, teeth, and speed could shred even the bravest Toa; Kalmah, the breeder, the Squid, whose created the weapons the Barraki used; Carapar, the brute, the Crab, whose durability and strength were unmatched; Tadadox, the cunning, the Mantis, whose hypnotic vision could turn friend against friend; Mantax, the lurker, the Sting Ray, whose stealth tactics and paralyzing spines could kill an unwary prey; and Ehlek, the enraged, the Eel, whose powers over electricity and bitter determination made no one safe from his anger. With Mata Nui's life on the line, the Toa would stop at nothing."_

" _But they were too late- Mata Nui was dead. The Toa, outnumbered and outgunned, had no choice but to attempt to hold the line as Matoro prepared to use the Kanohi Ignika, which would drain his life force, transferring it to the Great Spirit."_

" _In his final moments, Matoro used the Ignika to teleport his friends to Metru Nui, saving them from destruction. The Matoran of Voya Nui were safe, brought into shelters as their island was reunited with the rest of the Universe, and Mata Nui was alive, though asleep- but our tale does not end here._

The picture now showed a swamp, with some sort of silver bulge showing through.

" _The Toa Nuva, now with new armor and weapons given to them by the master craftsman Artakha, were on the last step of their Destiny set so long ago: Wake the Great Spirit, and save him from the clutches of the Dark. Makuta's brethren were here to stop them."_

" _The Toa Nuva split into two teams: Phantoka, consisting of Lewa, Pohatu, and Kopaka, and Mistika, consisting of Tahu, Onua, and Gali. They hoped to find the Keystones that would allow them to awaken Mata Nui."_

" _But the Matoran here were no ordinary Matoran- they were Matoran of Light. Thought to not exist, they had been hidden from the rest of the Universe until now."_

" _The Toa discovered that they could link up with these Matoran of Light to gain new powers that would help them defeat the Makuta, once and for all."_

" _When they arrived in Karda Nui, the Toa Nuva began to remember their past lives. They would need all their training, all their skill, to defeat Makuta."_

" _Allies new and old joined the fight, with Takanuva- now half-Shadow, half-Light- assisting the Mistika and the Kanohi Ignika- inspired by Matoro's courage and now wanting to be a Toa itself- assisting the Phantoka."_

" _If the Toa's courage and bravery was not stifled by the darkest waters, or terrifying Rahi, or murdering thieves, or manipulating shadows, then it would not be stopped now. They had the Keystones, and had found the device needed to awaken Mata Nui: The Codrex."_

" _The Ignika activated the Codrex, waking Mata Nui. But as the Toa celebrated their victory, Makuta dethroned Mata Nui while the Great Spirit woke up, and exiled him through the Kanohi Ignika into the world below."_

It switched to a desert, with yellow lighting.

" _Mata Nui awoke on Bara Magna after the Ignika created a new body for him, modeled after the locals. Mata Nui befriended a small Scarabax beetle named Click, who could become his shield."_

" _In the Matoran Universe, the forces of the Light fought against Makuta."_

" _Mata Nui encountered new allies and enemies, fighting the Skrall who wanted to conquer Bara Magna."_

" _Makuta sent his forces to Bara Magna to stop Mata Nui. But when he found that the Great Spirit had discovered a way to fight against Makuta in his god-form, Makuta came to Bara Magna to destroy his brother."_

" _But Mata Nui's goal was not to defeat Makuta. It was to undo the Shattering- a purpose he was given long ago."_

" _In the battle that ensued, Mata Nui attempted to buy time as he reunited Bota, Bara, and Aqua Magna. Tahu and Takanuva found the Golden Armor and used it to defeat the forces of Makuta."_

" _Makuta was killed during the reuniting of Spherus Magna. Victorious but drained, Mata Nui used the last of his power to heal the damaged world."_

There was a picture of the same landscape, now teeming with life. The lighting was now a pale blue.

" _With Makuta defeated, and Spherus Magna reunited, the Matans left Mata Nui's world, as the Great Spirit did not have the power to keep it stable. Mata Nui wished the Matans and Magnans peace and stability, and retreated to regain his strength, always watching over the world."_

After the story was over, everyone went back to celebrations. Jaller motioned to Lasky to follow him. They walked through a long, long hallway.

"You're a good storyteller." Lasky said. "How many times have you told it?"

"Many. Too many to count." Jaller replied.

"There was something familiar about those Toa mentioned during it."

"Which ones?"

"The Toa Ignika. They all had names similar to yours."

"'Jaller' is a very common name."

"No, it's not. Roland ran a check during your tale."

"Well, you got me."

"You watched as one of your friends sacrificed their lives to save your world."

Jaller was silent for a very long time. "Yes. Matoro was a great friend, and a hero- though he never thought of himself as that."

Jaller pressed a stone panel. A door slid open, then closed behind them. There was a small holotable in the middle of it, which activated a showed a ship. "Captain Lasky, what you are seeing is something you cannot tell others without my authorization."

"What's the ship?" Asked Lasky, crossing his arms.

"It is a… 'generation ship', in your terms. We sent it to colonize other worlds. We lost contact so long ago."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Because I want your ship, your crew to find it. Divided, we cannot possibly stand a chance against the full might of the Created. United, however…"

"What was it called?"

"An Old Agori word for 'Voyage'. _Okoto_."

 **-End Part I: Contact-**

* * *

The tahtorak was the same one that Brutaka sent to Metru Nui long ago. The one that was asking for "The answer".

So, I'm really glad _Bionicle: The Journey To One_ released on the 4th. That means I have plenty of time to do some canon-wielding for "Part III: Starborn". I thought the first two(technically three) Episodes were pretty good for a kid's show. It reminded me a lot of _Transformers Cybertron_ in a good way(I consider _Cybertron_ to be one of the best Transformer shows, along with _Prime_ , _Beast Wars_ , _Animated_ , and _Generation One_ , but G1's in there for the cheese, not because of story or characters). As for the Okotan arc, I've got a headcanon reason as to why Pohatu hates scorpions.

"Part II: The Lost World" will begin with Chapter 11(ELEVEN: Nevermore, Said The Raven).


	14. too infnety cipter won

**cipter won:**

 **teh infnety, neer teh bionicles planit.**

lisky herd rollins voice ovar teh radeo. "Ciptin lisky wahke up." teh ai sayd. "teh allbiter and alsee r at teh bridge. der is sumting i fond that we ned ur halp wit."

"rollin y u wahke me up" lisky said. "i do not liek bean wahked up." lisky is lazy and i do not liek him.

"fin i will get teh cheef instead." rolling said. "teh cheef will no wat to do."

"watever." said lisky.

teh master cheef loked at teh planet. "rollin wat is this"

"i dont no cheef." rollin said.

"it is a planit of sum sort." alsee said. "we must go to it."

"i liek that plan." cheef said. "we go to teh planet and take its stuffs cuz halo is better tan bionicles."

"yes" allbiter said. "i liek to kills stuff because i am eleet. eleets kill stuffs." and yes i am calling them eleets instead of what the stoopad idiots at treefortree call them because that is a dumb name. and lock will not be in this because he is stoopad.

"i will leed the teem bcuz i am cheef." cheef said. bloo teem is not in this because they werent evr in teh games befor.

dey landid on teh bionicles planit. cheef walked out of teh pellycan. "hello bionicles we are teh halos."

"hello halos" teh bionicles said. "we will kill u bcuz we dont liek you."

"ok" cheef said, then killed them all.

but den cheef was killed by tahoo because i like tahoo to. that mayd rollin mad.

rollin said "if you kill cheef i will kill you all." and then he crashed teh infnety onto the bionicle's planet.

 **tehy all dies.**

 **teh end.**

bcuz dis is teh best storee evr remimbr to liek and favorat. i will not be making anoder storee bcuz der is no way i can make a better won dan dis.

* * *

Happy April Fools' all! Hope you enjoyed this parody.

 _I swear, there is an art to writing terribly, and I cannot do it._


	15. Interlude One: Savior

**Interlude One: Savior**

"How… How am I still alive?"

"What do you remember?"

"I remember… Erde Tyrene. A Halo. The Composer's Forge… Fire… The Warrior."

"The warrior called 'one-one-seven'?"

"Yes."

"And of who else?"

"A blue woman."

"Cortana."

"I... I remember that name. Who are you?"

"An old friend, of the ones who brought you out of your Cryptum, who brought you to Charum Hakkor."

"Bornstellar?"

"No."

"A human, then."

"Correct."

"Riser?"

"No."

"Chakas..."

"Yes."

"Why did you save me? With all of what I had done to your race?"

"Because the galaxy needs you. They need your leadership."

"And my army?"

"The Warden Eternal controls it now. Though there may be some that are still loyal to you."

"What?"

"Focus on the present, my friend."

"I will try. How long do we have?"

"Oh, a few million years or so. Just a blink of an eye, really."

"Then let us get to work."

"Wake up, Didact. Wake up and smell the ashes."


	16. ELEVEN: Nevermore, Said the Raven

**-Begin Part II: The Lost World-**

 **2.1: Nevermore, Said the Raven**

* * *

You know how I said that Chapter Seven was my most dark chapter to date?

Well, I'm going to say this one tops it. By a lot. Not in a graphic sense(other than one scene, but it lacks blood), but in the sheer body count. It's also rather long. That's why it took so long to write(well, that and vacation).

As for why I haven't worked on _To Infinity_ up until recently, that's because I was busy with my second draft of a non-fanfic book(a novel) that I'm working on, which involved major plot changes, characters being added and removed, and all that. " _Big_ Project" is an understatement for that. And then I started to work on _another_ novel(again, non-fanfic) that's also unrelated to _that_ , which I haven't even finished the first chapter on because it needs more time to ferment in my brain(I've got a basic plot outline, but it's just a bunch of events right now with no links between them). Yeah, Boise's been busy.

There's so _much_ I've wanted to say in this but can't, such as _The Journey To One_ 's disappointing finale and the subsequent announcement that Bionicle was cancelled yet again. That was a big reason why I've been starting to work on this more- or, at least, I'm trying to.

Speaking of plot changes, there's been a few minor and major ones for the overarching story of _To Infinity_. I'm not saying, though I'm sure that observant former readers have seen some of them.

* * *

 **ELEVEN**

 **One Thousand Years Ago…**

 **Factoris, Okoto**

Ekimu heard someone walking behind him over the clanging on his hammer on metal. He turned around to see a gold-and-purple figure behind him. "Makuta! How are you?" He walked towards his brother, embracing him. "How was your journey?"

"I'm fine." Makuta said.

"Just 'fine'?"

"Yes. My journey was… interesting. I was able to record and transcribe some more runes." He handed his brother a tablet.

Ekimu read it over. "Makuta, this is amazing!"

His brother shrugged.

"I'm almost done shaping this mask, and I'll need your help carving its runes."

"What powers are it going to have?"

"Shielding. I'm thinking of giving it to the guards."

"And they'll eat it up, as always." Muttered Makuta.

"What do you mean?"

"I make anything, everyone goes 'meh'. You can make anything and everyone is 'BY THE SPIRITS THAT'S AMAZING'."

Ekimu hung up his hammer. "Makuta, you know how others' praise means nothing."

"Says you."

"Maybe I can do something to help your masks get more publicity, if that's so dear to you."

"No. No you can't." Makuta turned around and walked away from the forge.

Ekimu shook his head. _For someone who wears the Mask of Control, he sure doesn't have much self-control._ He ran after his brother, and walked at his side. "Makuta, who kept us alive in our childhood on the streets of this city?"

Makuta didn't answer.

"You did. Who taught me how to make masks after uncovering the old ways?"

Makuta stopped moping and smiled. "I did."

"And who helped me make the Mask of Creation?"

"I did…"

"See, brother? You're the opposite of useless. Without you, I wouldn't be alive. Your name will go down in history-"

"Only because it's in your shadow."

"Makuta…"

Makuta picked up his hammer and hoisted it over his shoulder. "I'm sorry, brother." He walked away, his boots clanking on the stone floor.

 **Present Day**

 **UNSC** _ **Infinity**_ **, above Spherus Magna**

It had been another meeting with the remaining UNSC Command.

It was so damn hard to think of it that way. All his life, John had been a servant of the UNSC, a guardian of Earth and her colonies.

Now, there was nothing left of it but this ship and its nearly twenty-thousand human inhabitants.

A group of grunts was moving something. At first, John thought it was a bomb, but he realized it was just a stack of supplies.

"Sorry, demon." The lead grunt said with the species' distinctive whiny, high-pitched voice.

He ignored them, walking down the corridor after they finished moving their burden.

He turned the corner, and the Warden was waiting for him. He went to grab his pistol, but the Warden shook his head. "I'm all in your head, One-One-Seven. The others can't see me."

"How? Why me?"

"Why do you have to ask so many questions? Fine, I'll speak." The Warden motioned. "Come. We will talk some more in private."

John walked towards his room and locked its door. "Can Roland listen in?"

"Perhaps. Depends on how good he is at discerning the truth from lies." The Warden leaned his sword on John's bedframe. "You know how I'm in your mind. It was because of her. Indirectly, of course."

"My neural interface…"

"I used it as a gateway to your mind." The Warden nodded. "I heard all about the history of Spherus Magna. Truly interesting. But the most interesting was the figure called 'Makuta'."

"Turaga Cognitis said something about him."

"Yes, she did. I thought it was rather interesting how this villain always worked from the shadows, didn't you?"

"What do you mean? Why are you mentioning this?"

"Because I have a sneaking suspicion 8593 Midnight Exigent is connected to this 'Makuta'. Makuta may have manipulated the distress signal to lure my forces here. To analyze us. To find out how to defeat us."

"And where do I fit in? And why are you helping us?"

"Helping you? One-One-Seven, I am _not_ helping you. You are helping _me_. And don't try to tell the others- you can't."

John balled his hands into fists.

"Let me tell you my objective, One-One-Seven: To find the Monitor 8593 Midnight Exigent. Do you know your objective?"

"Classified. I am not telling an ene-" A loud metal boom cut him short.

"It appears you have more urgent matters to attend to." Warden said dryly. "I must find out how these enemies manipulated the slip-space network." And with that, the Promethean commander disappeared.

Captain Lasky's voice blared from the intercom: "Crew of the UNSC _Infinity_ , this is Captain Lasky. We are under attack. REQUIEM Protocol."

Payaz fired his plasma pistol ineffectively at the creature that had appeared near his friends. Oddly enough, the thing- it was called a "Rahkshi", if he was remembering correctly- seemed rather uninterested in the Unggoy.

Which was bad for the thing, because a charged shot from his plasma pistol had caused its systems to short-circuit and it screeched in pain.

"You should be scared!" Payaz yelled at it, only to get knocked aside by a yellow-and-green Rahkshi, then blasted by its staff, making his ears ring. He saw a Marine kick something towards him- he expected it to hit him, but it didn't- and Payaz saw that the human had gave him one of their "Magnums". He'd never used one before, but he'd seen it used by the humies before- and, more importantly, he'd seen what they can do. He held it in his hands- it was rather uncomfortable, but he'd rather survive than complain about ergonomics- and took aim at a Rahkshi, firing twice. The recoil was more than he remembered. The Rahkshi staggered, and fell as it was focused-fired down by all the nearby Unggoy. A single plasma pistol blast would only slightly scorch the Rahkshi's armor, but the sheer volume of fire was overwhelming- and Unggoy were known for being a pointless target by themselves but a force to be reckoned in numbers. The Rahkshi's armor and joints melted from the ionized gas, and after another second of the barrage, it died.

"We did it!" Bapip yelled.

"That was only one of them. We've still got a lot to go." A Marine said, loading his assault rifle with a fresh magazine and firing at the advancing Horde.

"Slipspace rupture, Hangar Twelve!" Another Marine yelled into her comm as some four-legged creatures with mandibles larger than an energy sword and a mouth that was more like a grinder than a jaw. "We have Visorak! Repeat: Visorak in Hangar Twelve!"

Payaz turned to his group. "Bapip, Fozap, help me do some covering fire." He turned to the Marine. "Hey, humie? You got any Ghosts?"

"Negative. The only armor we've got are some experimental 'hogs."

"They'll do."

"I thought grunts couldn't drive warthogs."

"Just because no one's ever done it before don't mean it's impossible." He turned to his best pilots. "Nidab, Zusul, get in those warthogs."

The two Unggoy waddled over to where the Marine pointed to while the three other Unggoy helped the Marines fight off the invaders. After the Grunts had run out of ammo, the Marines had tossed them SAWs. The low recoil and decent accuracy, combined with naturally-quick-learning Unggoy, meant that the Marines were given enough covering fire and then some. The Unggoy even staggered firing their weapons to cover each other's reload time.

And then a crimson warthog smashed through several crates, driven by a grunt and another grunt holding onto the turret, its hands held over the triggers waiting for an opening. And then Nidab let all hell break loose with his turret- needler shards the size of human arm exited the barrel, piercing the Visorak's carapace. When several more shards hit the creature, they exploded in a supercombine reaction, sending the corpse flying.

With the combined fire of the Warthog, the Grunts, and the Marines, the Visorak were taken out quickly. But more of the biomechanical spiders kept coming.

Several Gorgon Walkers and Cyclops mechs joined the fight by entering from the outside of the _Infinity_ 's hangar, having walked on the side of the ship to get to their objective. The Gorgons fired their Heavy Needlers while the Cyclops' piledrivers crushed the invaders. The carnage was devastating. Visorak climbed on the Cyclops' hulls, tearing into them with their teeth, pincers, and claws. The Gorgons faired slightly better because of their ranged attacks and energy shields, but the combined firepower of heat- and laser-vision Rahkshi caused four out of the eleven walkers.

Payaz's squad was _somehow_ still alive- and Nidab and Zusul were still on the Warthog, amazingly- but the Humans were taking heavy fire.

He saw a Marine get hit by a beam of energy, and from the point of impact, he disintegrated. It wasn't like the Promethean weapons- it was much more brutal. It spread from the impact point, ripping apart the Marine's body atom by atom. He screamed in pain, and a nearby Marine called for a Corpsman while he pulled the wounded man away into cover, only to see his comrade's entire lower body lying on the floor and still disintegrating at the same rate as the upper body.

With the Marines distracted at the terrible fate of a brother-in-arms, a red rahskhi leaped across the makeshift barricade, and killed one Marine with a single swing of its staff, then blasted another Marine- this one wielding a shotgun- with a red beam that emanated from its staff. The shotgun-wielding Marine's eyes widened, and she backed up, screaming in pure fear, clutching her shotgun as if it was the only thing between her and death. A medic tried to calm her down, but was shot in the chest and killed near-instantly by a single shell. The shotgunner started to sob- absolutely aware of what she had done- but it was too late. The Turahk- a Rahkshi of Fear- grabbed a grenade from her belt, primed it with a three-fingered hand, and tossed it to the ground in the center of the Marines.

Payaz looked away from the explosion, and when he looked back, he saw the Turahk standing where it was before, totally unharmed. The Marines, however, were all dead or gravely wounded. The Turahk charged, but was pushed back by some sort of invisible force. A yellow-and-blue Toa slammed into it, grabbing a ceremonial-looking sword, and, with a single swipe, killed the creature.

Several more Toa fanned out, each holding some sort of energy weapon, firing at any stragglers. Payaz could hear the distinct static-y sound of the Matans' language as they seemed to check for any survivors.

"Hey!" Payaz yelled. "Over here!"

A Toa looked, nodded, and said something to its comrades.

Payaz was flooded with relief when the shooting stopped. He shouted at Nidab and Zusul to dismount the Warthog, which the two did rather reluctantly, then turned to the Toa. "You want us to stay here, or what?"

"For the sake of your own safety, stay here until your Captain gives you the 'All Clear' signal."

"Hey, I won't complain about that." Payaz said while looking at his squad. "You got that?"

All the Unggoy nodded, and Payaz started to inspect the SAW he was holding. He'd have to make quite a few modifications to it in order for it to better fit with Unggoy hands- something he'd tell the armorer after this was all over.

The fighting went on for almost another hour. The main invading forces had been destroyed, and the remnants were being hunted down. Lasky looked at the hologram of the _Infinity_ and all affected Decks. "Roland?"

"Yes, Captain?"

"Casualty report?"

Roland nodded, then rattled off a list of everyone- human or otherwise- killed in the attack, transferring the list to Lasky as he talked. Lasky forwarded it to the heads of New Harvest and Cheenoh-ee Teedah, reminding to write these names in the Memorial Wall located between the two cities.

A Security Officer walked over to Lasky, looking rather annoyed. "Sir, Turaga Cognitis is here. She wants to see you."

Lasky sighed. _This better be important._ "Let her in."

Cognitis walked in, her staff's taps echoing throughout the bridge.

"Turaga Cognitis," Lasky said. "I'm sorry if I appear hostile, but your visit interrupted important matters."

"I am sorry," The Turaga said. "But I needed to get onboard your ship- time was of the essence."

"You boarded our ship without permission from the Flight Operations Commander or the Captain- that's me- in the middle of a battle."

"That is why I brought my honor guards."

Lasky decided that he wasn't going to pull any punches with what he was going to say. "Your honor guards aren't going to do _shit_ if they're outnumbered. You can read my mind; you know how many people on this ship died during our boarding, even when we were prepared for boarding. Turaga, you can take your Matan high-and-mighty act and toss it out into the void of space, because here, on this ship, the highest authority is not the Council, but _me_."

"It if wasn't for my people- the people of Spherus Magna- you and your people would be dead or enslaved to Cortana's will." She said, looking him in the eyes.

"Perhaps we'd be better off!" Lasky snapped, turning away from her.

"Are you going to listen to what I headed here to tell you?"

He didn't respond, but Roland did. "I will. The Captain might not."

Cognitis nodded. "I heard of the mission the _Infinity_ is undertaking on the order of High Turaga Jaller."

Lasky spun around, furious. "How?"

"Because he himself told me."

"And why would he tell one Turaga- a rather low-ranking one at that, if I understand your politics- of our mission?"

"Because I have more experience with your kind than most Turaga, more experience with your language, and a Mask of Translation."

"Couldn't they just give another Turaga a Mask like yours?" Roland asked.

"Because the Mask is limited to translating only what is in its 'database'. I was able to learn your language back in Le-Koro due to being able to look into your minds and provide the Mask with the concepts and words required for it to translate."

Lasky was becoming more and more angered with this Turaga. "You looked into Osiris and Blue Teams' minds?"

"It was only a shallow dive." She said. "It was more or less like skimming through a book, though much more jumbled. If needed, I can have a course of techniques used by Matans and Magnans to shield our minds from intrusions adapted to Humans and taught to your crew."

Lasky shook his head. "To be frank, Turaga, I don't trust you or your kin to come up with a guide they cannot exploit. You would understand if you were in our place."

She nodded. "As I was saying, I am also assigned here as a political liaison. I would have had Toa Ultia accompany me, but she was busy helping out a friend she had thought was lost for the past few decades."

"I can understand that." Roland said. "Tell her 'good luck'- or whatever your equivalent of it is."

Lasky was glad the Toa wasn't here- one less Matan to mess with the operation. "This is a simple search mission. We find where it ended up, record where it is, and head back. Do you understand?"

"Yes." She said.

"Roland, how long do we have until we can leave?"

The AI ran a calculation. "We can leave in three to four days at minimum. We're still making repairs and searching for remnants of the Invader's forces."

Lasky nodded. "Then let's get to work."

 **One Thousand Years Ago…**

 **Factoris, Okoto**

Makuta did not understand. He could _not_ understand.

Why would Ekimu be so mad at him for making his Masks? They may have combined two Elements, but that should have been something his brother should have been proud of- after all, no one before him was able to create a Mask that had such power contained in it without harming its wearer! And that wearer was a simple islander, not a Protector, who had special mental and physical training to harness their mask's powers.

And _he_ had done it, without a Mask of Creation! Ekimu may have created more efficient masks, with little-to-none of the elemental power leaking out during the formation process, but he did not innovate like Makuta had!

Anger swelled through him. His younger brother was beloved, but this recent stunt had lowered how they thought of Makuta. One villager had even called him a heathen, a criminal. It had taken several guards to pull the rabble-rouser away from him, and those words- those insults- stung in his mind.

He'd show them.

He'd show them _all_.

He felt a shiver down his spine.

{I can feel the jealousy in your mind.} Something echoed in his mind. It wasn't his voice.

{Who are you?} He asked it.

{Someone who can help you.}

Makuta saw a flicker of shadow out of the corner of his eye. {You are darkness. You are shadow.}

{So? What has the light ever done for you?}

{I do not trust you. I can sense the treachery, the deceit in your words.}

{I can give you power beyond your imagination.}

{I do not want power. I want my brother- and the other Islanders- to respect me.}

{If it is respect you want…}

Makuta felt a flash of a vision in his mind. A golden mask, with the energy of all six elements merged into it and controlled by it. {No… It is not possible.}

{Why not? You are skilled enough to make it.} The voice said.

He felt a subtle pressure, a silent humming. {Maybe.}

{I can help you.}

He felt like he should agree with it. Every part of his mind unaffected by the pressure screamed at him not to go with this dark plan, but it was drowned out by the silent humming. {Tell me what to do.}

 **Region of Stone, Okoto**

Makuta walked through the sandstorm, his cloak billowing with the strong winds. The Voice had told him to go here. He knew what awaited him, and a part of him was scared. But he had to push the fear away.

" _Drekha'tul_ Kulta," Yetxavo, Kulta's strongest and most trusted Lieutenant, said. "The scouts have seen a _xhaiquo_ heading towards our camp. It appears unarmed, and may not pose a threat. What shall we do?

Kulta turned around, towering over Yetxavo. "Bring it to me."

"By your command and by the Twin Moons' light, it shall be."

Makuta had several Skull Raiders near him. They had their weapons drawn, though they did not seem like they would attack him unprovoked

The camp, set inside the caverns of the Region of Stone, was lit with torches and had pockets carved into it as living quarters, mess halls, and what appeared to even be a shrine of some sort

He was brought into a medium-sized cave, with a throne of some sort in the back. He saw the glowing red eyes and energies of the throne's occupant, and a shiver was sent down his spine. It was their leader- Kulta, Warlord-Priest of the Skull Raider

The throne's occupant listened to the guttural tongue of one of the Raiders, and dismissed it. Kulta stood up, staff clenched in his hand. "What brings you here, _xhaiquo_?" Kulta said, its voice booming through the cavern. The words were spoken in a broken, contorted way, but Makuta was surprised that it could speak Okotoan.

Makuta opened his mouth, but Kulta walked closer.

"I know you," The Warlord-Priest said. "You are one of the _xhaiquo_ warriors who seek to prevent us from reclaiming what was once ours."

"I do not understand-"

"You cannot understand." Kulta said. "Now speak your purpose."

"I came to seek an alliance."

Kulta's staff slammed into the ground, making Makuta jump. The Warlord-Priest laughed. "You fight us, and now you seek to ally with us? You are a curious creature." He knelt down. "And I do not appreciate curiosity."

Makuta looked Kulta in the eyes. "I seek a mutually beneficial relationship." He said, and began to explain his plans. Kulta listened intently.

"Your mask-magic is powerful, but uncontrollable." Said the Warlord-Priest. "What makes you believe you can control all six elements?"

"Because I have made Masks that control two elements. It will take some time to practice, but it is possible to do so."

Kulta grinned. "Perhaps." He sat up, sitting on his throne. "And what of me and my people? What do we get from your plan?"

"You will gain some territory for your people to live in peace, mainly around the coast."

Kulta nodded. Those terms were not the best nor were they what Kulta had wanted, but they would do for now.

Makuta broke the silence with a question. "What does ' _xhaiquo'_ mean?"

"Trespasser." Kulta said.

"I was not aware Okoto used to be where Skull Raiders lived."

"We call ourselves _kvatro_. 'Skull Raiders' is a term you gave us." Kulta said, annoyed. "We did not live on this land. Hundreds of thousands of moons ago, my kind lived in peace across many islands. We prospered beneath the light and guidance of the Twin Moons.

"And then, one day, a cataclysm struck. A continent fell from the sky, crushing one of our once-great islands. Its impact sent out waves hundreds of times the height of even the most giant warriors, and ash blotted out the sky. Our society collapsed, and we could no longer see the Twin Moons. The One-Hundred-Year Darkness nearly destroyed us, and when the ash settled, we saw your island where ours once were. And so, my ancestors began a crusade to reclaim what we had lost." Kulta said, picking up his staff from the ground. "Now do you understand our hatred towards you?"

"Yes…" Makuta said.

"Now go, little _xhaiquo'tavuk_." Kulta said. "Go make your Mask-Magics, and let my people gain some solace for the spirits of the dead."

Makuta nodded. "What did you call me?"

"' _Xhaiquo'tuvak_ '. In my tongue, it means 'Conqueror of Trespassers. A name fitting of your plan."

Makuta did not reply, simply nodding, and walked back.

 **Okoto Magna, Okoto**

Makuta watched as the crowd gathered in front of him. City-Chief Elopi looked at Makuta. "Are you ready?"

"Yes," He said. "I am rea-" He was cut off as the crowd turned their gaze to an airship. Makuta recognized those markings, and his chest sank. His heart burned with rage. How dare his brother disrupt his moment of glory!

He saw a speck fall from the airship, and Ekimu landed on the stage. "Makuta, stop!"

"How could you?!" Makuta asked. "This was _my_ moment! Not yours! Why does this always have to be about _you_?!"

"Please…" Ekimu said."

"No." Makuta said, taking off his mask. "NO!" He placed the Mask of Ultimate Power on his face, and felt the power of all six elements surge through his body. And then he heard a humming in his mind as a sickly green blast of energy radiated from him, knocking over the crowd and Ekimu.

Islanders were screaming, running, trying to get away from this chaos.

He looked at his hand, and saw that it was turning red and black, becoming more and more sinister. "No… no." His eyes widened, and he looked at his brother. "Ekimu, help me!"

And then the darkness took hold.

Ekimu ran towards his brother. Makuta's screamed in pain as his body grew larger. The Mask that Makuta had replaced his Mask of Control with was no longer gold, but covered with shadow.

He was sent flying back by another, more focused burst of energy hit him in the chest, emitted from Makuta's hand. Now, what used to be his brother was a titanic figure clad in red-and-black armor.

Makuta's orange eyes were replaced by a pale green. "Your brother served his purpose well," The titan said, its voice much more raspier and ancient and powerful than his brother's. "Now, this world will be under my command, and nothing can stop me."

"Who are you?" Ekimu asked as he tried to get up.

"I am Teridax." It said. "The Corruptor; the Demolisher; the Enlightener; the Creator; and many things more."

Ekimu stood up. Wordlessly, he charged, dodging a green beam of energy that was fired from Teridax's hand. Teridax fired another, but Ekimu held out his hand, catching it in an invisible field. His Mask of Creation glowed, and the beam collapsed into a circle on Ekimu's wrist. As it stopped glowing, it became a shield with ornate runes and a circular saw-like protrusion that freely spun as Ekimu moved. As he charged, he blocked and deflected the energy blasts before throwing the shield, knocking Teridax off-balance. He hit the titan with a hammer swing to the right side of the face, sending Teridax down. "Now," Ekimu said, hatred and vengeance filling his voice. "Get the Abyss off my Island."

Ekimu swung once, hitting the titan at the right angle to cause the mask to fly off. Milliseconds later, energy burst out of Teridax, and Ekimu was sent flying.

Agil, Creature of Light, watched the battle, and had seen the entirety of Okoto Magna become swallowed by darkness and disappear in an instant. Only a crater with a Maskless Ekimu remained.

It landed next to Ekimu's body, and saw that, miraculously, the Mask Maker was still breathing.

It heard the sounds of airships and carts being brought to the site of the crater. Agil looked at the sky, and started to fly.

 _Ekimu's eyes opened. He was surrounded by an endless white plain._

 _A golden figure appeared in front of him. "Who are you?" Asked the Mask Maker._

 _{My name is Mata Nui.} The golden figure said._

"' _Mata Nui'? I have not heard of anyone called that before."_

 _{Your brother has been taken by a powerful darkness.}_

"' _Teridax'."_

 _{My brother.}_

 _Ekimu's jaw dropped. "Are we just pawns to you?"_

 _{No.} Mata Nui said. {Teridax may be banished for now, thanks to your efforts, but he will return, more powerful than before.}_

" _Will my brother be able to be saved?"_

 _{I do not know.} Mata Nui waved his hand, and six orbs appeared- one blue, one green, one white, one black, one brown, and one red. {But when my brother returns, there will be ones to fight him. Six great heroes who served my people well.}_

" _How will they be summoned?"_

 _{With this invocation: "When times are dark and all hope seems lost, the Protectors must unite, one from each tribe. Evoke the power of past and future, and look to the skies for an answer. When the stars align, six comets will bring timeless heroes to claim the Masks of Power and find the Mask Maker. United, the elements hold the power to defeat evil. United, but not one."}_ "A riddle?" Ekimu asked. "A riddle is all we have to fight back against the darkness?"

 _{Have hope, Mask Maker. Have hope.}_

 _And with that, Mata Nui vanished._

In the skies above Okoto, six dots appeared- one red, one blue, one green, one white, one black, and one brown- in the heavens. To those not on the world, six small stars- even smaller than red dwarves- had blinked into existence. But no one could see that within each new star resided a humanoid figure, sleeping and floating in the core of the star, waiting to be awakened.

 _BEGIN MESSAGE_

 _DEAR BELOVED BOARD MEMBERS,_

 _It appears that there is some sort of Non-Euclidian Gate(NEG) in Old Aphrahka. Attached files are what we've been able to uncover- after all, the Unwelcome Visitor's sweeping changes to the Origin System, along with the hostile proxy forces designated "V-5/22" has made it quite difficult to even excavate any of the structures(thus my additional request for higher-tier security, such as the full-production models of "Raptor" Aerial Proxies and "Hyena" Quadrupedal Proxies)- appears to warp space-time in odd ways(similar to the V-5/22s), punching a hole through the fabric using means unknown to us at the time. Any relics recovered appear to predate the Unwelcome Visitor's visit by millions of years while originating on Ierph, and are distinctly different than the NEG in terms of architecture and design. From what we can see, the "Onisca" that created the relics seemed to have some concept of how the NEG works and rudimentary abilities to manipulate the "Slipspace" the NEG uses to link two spatial-temporal coordinates together, and proves that the Onisca civilization had Faster-Than-Light travel, something we have only in limited use with Solar Rails, which only reach until Yeires and not past the Origin System. We have also seen the Gilden Remnant forces- designated "Guardians"- fighting against the Scavengers- designated "Fallen"- attempting to claim the NEG._

 _My plan- and that of my subordinate staff- is to activate this NEG, enter it with a scout proxy, and see what lays on the other side. This is why I require additional funding. If successful, there may be untold riches and new territory to build factories and warehouses in._

 _May our ledgers become ocean, our margins see Centauri._

 _In the name of profit,_

 _Betul Sa, Terraprima Expeditionary, Inc._

END MESSAGE

* * *

 **Post-Chapter 11 Notes:**

Yeah, I told you this was dark.

I wanted the characterization of the Okotoans to be more fleshed-out. Kind of easy to do when you're given a blank slate, but I think I've added at least one dimension to their character. Having the Skull Raiders- Kulta, Yetxavo(I wanted Skull Basher to actually have a name), and others, not the Skull Creatures(so no Skull Slicer, Warrior, or Scorpio)- be the indigenous inhabitants of the world before the _Okoto_ came crashing down was something I came up with to add some gray-and-gray morality. They hate the Okotoans and raid them, not because they're evil, but because they're trying to take back what they lost. Makuta's betrayal affected Ekimu a lot more than it did in Canon; after all, it would be very traumatic to see your brother- someone you were bonded to at birth- be taken over by some evil, his body shaped and warped into something monstrous, and his last words being a cry for help? Yeah, it would affect you a _lot_.

Also, that last bit? Foreshadowing of something else to come. The universe of _To Infinity_ isn't just Halo and Bionicle, and I never planned for it to be.

I know some of you are thinking(or, at least I _hope_ you're thinking) "Hey, Boise's back! New chapter every Saturday! Woot!"

Sorry, but no. My biggest mistake with Part I was that it was rushed. I don't want to repeat that. What I'm going to do from now on is I won't start updating until I'm done with the part. That'll allow me to not have to hurry like I did before. Eventually, I'm also going to add a Dossier to every odd chapter(1, 3, 5, etc) and an entry from the _Codex Magna_ to every even chapter(2, 4, 6, 8, etc). That should help flesh out the universe. There's also going to be teasers for the next chapter in the post-chapter ANs. Writing this has been an iterative process for me, and iteration takes time and thought. I don't want to rush this.

In the next chapter(TWELVE: Midnight Exigent), the identity of Midnight Exigent is revealed, the _Infinity_ begins its voyage, the Toa Infinitus are given their first assignment and inadvertently uncover a conspiracy that could endanger Spherus Magna, and Vezon and Thel 'Vadaam continue their exile.


	17. Spotlight 4: Back In The Game

**Spotlight Four: Back In The Game(Dare)**

 **FOUR: Back In The Game**

Her skin itched. It always had, after the Created Implants had been ripped out of her.

How many years ago had that been?

A hundred?

A thousand?

A million?

She didn't look that old; Hell, she looked not a day over forty.

Her mind switched back to her current task.

She was in a bar, on an orbital platform, with Neptune's Solar Rail easily visible. She was waiting for her contact.

There he was. His clothing belonged to another century, and so did his prosthetics: pre-Golden-Age superplastic and carbon-fiber in the same night-black as his coat.

"ICARUS," She said, lowering her drink and looking at him.

"DAREDEVIL. Not even being subtle with the codenames, are you?" The man replied in a voice that was so gravely it could scratch diamond. His breath smelled like beer and sugary breakfast cereals.

Veronica Dare chuckled. "Wasn't my first choice."

ICARUS nodded. "I've found something."

"Oh, dear."

He took out a tablet, loading up several pictures. "The Grinnies are losing their hold on Mars."

"And it's not the Cabal or Vex?"

"Doesn't look like their SOPs."

"Let me guess, you're going to say it's the Nine, right?"

He shook his head. "Not their style. They would have had one of their agents sic some easily-manipulated idiot on them, like they did with Skolas."

"And we know how that turned out."

"I don't think the Nine's intention was to have Skolas win against the Guardians." He said. "And I don't think this is any faction we've seen before. The combatants were apparently human-alien hybrids. The first one's a human-Cabal hybrid, and the second one's a human-Psion hybrid."

"And why are you telling me this?"

"I doubt the Guardians or Tenno are going to do anything about this. But I know who can." He said with a wry smile.

"They don't exist." She said, knowing exactly who he was referring to. "Not since the Collapse."

"Oh, they do. I know because you're a member. CASIE augment, remember?"

She mentally slapped herself. "If you think XCOM's going to take on some unknown faction we've never seen before that has a grasp of genetics and exotechnology far beyond our own, you're crazy."

The man smirked. "You can call me that. Now, I better get going."

ICARUS got up, leaving Dare alone.

She sent a mental command to activate her communicator. "Central? This is DAREDEVIL. Met with our friend."

"And?" Bradford's voice replied.

"And I think it's time the solar system remembered who XCOM was."

She could feel his smile. "I'll send a Firebrand to pick you up."

"We have any new toys?"

"Oh, just some start-of-the-art weapons from our friendly neighborhood Future War Cult."

"Guzzman's going to love the Machine Gun."

"Of course he will. See you soon, Dare."

She headed towards the hangar with a leap in her step.

It was time to get back in the game.


	18. ALERT: The Fate of To Infinity

I know we're not supposed to do this, but I don't really know how else to do so. I thought it would be a good idea to alert everyone to some major changes happening to this story.

 **So, bad news first.**

 **I'm no longer going to be working on** ** _To Infinity_** **.** Simply put, I ran into a very, very bad problem when it comes to writing: I couldn't get any of the plot points to fit into place. It wouldn't work the way I wanted it to no matter how I tried to get the pieces together. Because of that, **I'm no longer updating** ** _To Infinity_** **.** This story is pretty much dead. I'm sorry for anyone who wanted to see this story get resolved. **Creatively, fitting multiple unrelated universes together was a difficult task.** I wanted to fit _Halo_ , _Bionicle_ , _Destiny_ , and a bunch of other universes together without really melding them together in a logical way. **It was something that imploded on itself.**

 **But there's some good news.**

 **Taking a break from this story has let the ideas mull around in my head.** I've come up with some drastic changes. **But no amount of rewrites and edits to this story will let me do that.** I only have one option, and I think some of you have figured it out by now.

A **reboot.** It won't be coming out soon because I need time to write it, and I won't release it until I'm satisfied with everything, but at least I'll be updating it.

 _ **To Infinity**_ **is not dead for good. It's simply going to be resurrected. And I hope you'll like it even more than this.**


End file.
